Secrets Exposed (Unfinished)
by Freakachu
Summary: Lilja decides to leave Ash and company, and her uncle suggests she could try competing in another Pokémon league.
1. Secrets Exposed - Part 1 : Retribution o...

Secrets Exposed  
Part 1 : Retribution of Jealousy  
By Freakachu 

::_Authors note: This fanfic mentions a person named Arti. Arti is the property of my friend, Arti Cuno. To get the full story of Arti and her gym, please read Arti Cuno's "Birds of a Feather" and "True colors of Prussian". Thank you._ ::

Lilja stretched out on her sleeping bag and looked up at the starry sky. She could hear the crickets chirping in the tall grass nearby and the low hum of bugs. The girl sleeping a few meters away from her disliked bugs with a passion. Maybe she'd put a weedle in her backpack for laughs. Lilja didn't really hate the orange haired girl named Misty, but there seemed to be sparks of some kind between them. Misty seemed to dislike Lilja for some reason, and Lilja couldn't imagine why. 

She turned on her side and glanced at the dark silhouette of the sleeping black haired boy who was her best friend in the entire world. Secretly, she liked him very much, lately more romantic feelings. She sighed and crawled into her sleeping bag. She wouldn't ever be able to tell him that. What would he say?   
  


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It had been about 7 months since Ash, Misty, Lilja, and Brock had left Cinnabar Island where Ash had competed against Blaine for his Volcanoe Badge. Ash had met Lilja in the gym and they decided that she should go with them. Misty needed convincing. She didn't seem all too thrilled that Lilja was coming along. 

The went to Viridian, where Ash battled to win his Earht badge, and then gone to Ash's friend Arti's place, who owned the Prussian Town gym. She was undefeated since it had opened, and no one had ever gotten her badge. Arti was only 12 then, yet she was pregnant when they had arrived. Later, while they were there, she had given birth to twin sons. Prussian Town was near Fuschia, so it took quite a while to get there. 

Now, they were going back to Pallet so Ash could get to Indigo to compete in the Pokemon Leauge. Lilja hadn't competed in any league yet, and she thought that she'd give it a try. At the moment, they were along the shoreline on the side of the bike path closest to Pallet on the other side of the water. It was a great cold sea, with iceflows from the north. The frigid water was below them, a sheer 300 foot, straight down drop off the cliffs that they walked along. 

* * *

"I guess we'll camp here tonight," Brock broke the ominous silence that had settled over the weary group. 

"Uh huh." Muttered Misty who was occupied with her own thoughts. Her gaze wandered over to Lilja and noticed how she would steal glances at Ash every now and then when he wouldn't notice. Misty knew there was something going on with her. Lilja had a crush on him, plain and simple. Misty hoped he didn't like her for more than a friend, because she wanted him for her own very badly. It seemed he liked her. Misty would see him watch Lilja longingly. She also hoped that the shine she saw in his eyes when he regarded her was just from the sun. 

All four of them looked around the field that Brock had chosen to stay for the night. It was a huge meadow with soft grasses and bursts of yellow flowers covered it. The whole scene looked ghostly in the moonlight. Ash and Brock collected medium sized rocks from the edge of the cliff which was just a couple hundred yards to their left. The edge of the cliff was hidden by thick foliage, dense enough so that neither Lilja or Misty could see the boys. Misty watched Lilja spread out her sleeping bag on the ground and sit on it, waiting for something. Glaring at her, she took her stuff out of her backpack and layed out her sleeping bag as well. 

A little while later, the girls heard Ash and Brock returning with an armload of rocks each. They went about making a fireplace with the rocks and some sticks of wood nearby. 

"Got a match, Ash?" Brock queried. 

"Uh.. no, I don't." Ash replied after looking through his backpack with a flashlight and came up empty handed. 

Freakachu walked over to the pile of sticks and sat on them, causing them to ignite. 

Ash started laughing, and picked the Freakachu up out of the small inferno.

Lilja stretched her legs out, and yawned, while Ash watched her, fascinated. Misty glared in her direction. Even she agreed, although only to herself, that Lilja did look pretty good. No wonder Ash found her attractive. She had long dark reddish hair, isntead of the short orange hair that looked hacked at like Misty's did. Even her eyes were stunning. Unlike Misty's two tone aquaish eyes, hers were dark green which sparkled like mad whenever she was happy. Misty decided to set her straight. 

_"If she thinks she's going to get Ash, she's got another thing coming. She's going to have to get through me first." _Misty thought with fire in her eyes. If Ash didn't want her, why would he even consider Lilja? Obviously Ash didn't know she liked him, and vice versa. _"The perfect situation, once Lilja's out of the picture, maybe I'll stand a chance. He'll never know that she liked him and once I tell him how I feel, he's mine! " _Misty thought about how she could get her to leave as soon as possible. Mayve tell her lies about Ash. That should get her upset enough to leave.

Misty jumped up from where she was sitting and cleared her throat.

"Uh, Lilja, I think I need to talk to you." She mumbled, walking toward the shrubbage, Lilja got up to follow her. 

* * *

"I don't like the way they were looking at each other. If looks could kill, they'd both be goners by now." Brock remarked, as the two girls disappeared into the tall bushes.

"What do you mean, Brock?" Ash questioned. "They seem to be getting along to me."

Brock warmed his hands by the fire, Freakachu curled up by his feet.

"Just because they aren't yelling and arguing, doesn't mean they adore each other, Ash. There's alot of unsaid words and static between them." 

There was a pause and all that could be heard was chirping of night crickets. Then they could faintly hear a noise on the other side of the bushes which was almost like a slapping sound. It was quiet for another second or so, then they heard a earshattering scream.

"What was that?!" Ash yelled, abandoning the log he was sitting on.

Brock shook his head.

"I haven't the slightest." He rose also to follow Ash who was running toward the spot where Misty and Lilja had gone.

The two boys burst through the dense growth to see Misty standing on the edge of the cliff, looking down. When she saw them, she straightened and stared at them, not saying a word. Her face void of emotion. 

_"I didn't mean to push her. She just pissed me off so much, I gave her a shove. I didn't mean it. She slapped me." _

Ash looked around, a sick feeling in the bottom of his stomach.

"Where's Lilja?" He glanced at Misty hoping for an answer. Instead, she directed her gaze back over the side of the cliff.

"Ash, Lilja went over the side!" Brock choked, a worried look on his face. Ash rushed to the side of the cliff and looked down, almost falling off himself. Pebbles from under his sneakers dropped over the side and skittered down to the sharp rocks below.

"I'm going down!" He hollered.

"Ash! You can't!" Misty grabbed his arm. "You'll hit the rocks down there!"

Ash pulled away from her. He had already kicked his shoes and socks off, and was pulling his shirt up over his head.

"That water is freezing, Ash!" Shocked that his friend would think of jumping off a cliff, Brock stepped back our of Ash's way as he took a running start towards the edge of the cliff.


	2. Secrets Exposed - Part 2 : Unusual Dream...

Secrets Exposed  
Part 2 : Unusual Dreams  
By Freakachu 

"Ash! Don't be crazy! There are rocks down there! YOU ARE GOING TO HIT THE DAMNED ROCKS!" Brock hollored at Ash, as he took a running start toward the edge of the cliff. Brock could tell by the determined look on Ash's face that no one would be able to stop him now, and that he was intent of jumping. 

_'If I get a good running start, maybe I'll land clear of the rocks,' _he thought, a second before he jumped. His bare feet left the stone cliff and he felt himself become airborne. The cool night air whipped around him as he fell and, looking down, realized he was much closer to the sharp, hazardous rocks than he thought he would have been. 

When he hit the water, it smacked him like a giant hand, cold and fierce. A million knives stabbed him and he doubled up underwater. It was freezing! He swam desperately to the surface to catch a breath, thinking that maybe leaping off the side of a cliff was a stupid idea after all. Ash was grateful for missing the rocks, which were just a few feet away. He clung to one, shivering. The shock of the water had made him forget what he was down there for in the first place. The realization struck him like the ocean had. 

"Lilja!" He yelled as loud as he could, but his voice was hoarse from the cold sea water. Gulping in a breath of air, he dovedown searching, not caring that his arms and legs were numb. 

_'If we ever survive this, we'll be lucky!'_ Thought Ash. A minute later, he spotted a dot of red a few meters away. Lilja had been wearing a red shirt. He frantically swam towards her, each stroke making him panic more of losing his breath and drowning. He had to save her. He had to save her and tell her how he felt about her. He felt more strongly about her than he had ever felt about any girl before. He fumbled for her, his fingers feeling non-existant. Finally, he caught hold of her around the waist and pulled her up with him. Ash reached the surface with Lilja just before he ran out of breath. The wind had picked up and the water was choppy. The added wind made the air seem even colder as it was before and it bit at his face, chilling him to the bone. 

After what seemed like decades, he had dragged her up onto a small sand bar, and was just about to collapse when Lilja coughed and opened her eyes. 

"Ash?" 

"What? Are you ok? You scared me!" He was even more terrified when she closed her eyes again. 

"I love you..." She muttered, before she went limp on the damp sand. 

* * *

All the world was on fire. Volcanoes spouted lava and the rivers were molten rock. Even the grass was fire under her feet. It burned, but she didn't acknowledge it. Around her, pokemon were being sacraficed to the volcanoes to stop the lava flow. A small child ran up to her and clutched her leg. 

"Lilja! Have you forgotten about me?" The girl's meowth tail swished back and forth. She wore old rags of some kind, and her hair was dirty. 

Lilja turned around and was now in a different place. She was in a boat, traveling through blood red water. There were people in the boat with her, and one girl screamed "I hate you, and so does everyone else here!" before she pushed her overboard into the burning sea. The one thing she remebered before she went over was the girls hair. It was bright orange. 

She floated for a time in the boiling water, seeing nothing, feeling nothing. The sky was black as tar and there were no stars or moon. Gradually the water became cooler, and a large face loomed in the sky. The face looked kind and gentle, kind of like herself. The long hair was dark, and the eyes were deep green. Obviously it was female. The face faded and Lilja heard herself calling out to it. 

* * *

Ash glanced nervously into his cup of cocoa. It was well into the night, and very chilly. 

"She's okay, isn't she? I mean, she did fall of a cliff." Ash sneezed. Brock looked at Misty. She looked a bit disapointed over something. 

Brock shrugged. 

"She might be okay. It depends. Misty, what happened with you two when she fell?" He questioned. 

Misty looked uncomfortable. 

"Uh... well, see, we were arguing, and she slapped me. I went to slap her back and she stepped backwards and fell off the cliff. I didn't mean to make her fall." 

Brock looked skeptical. It didn't sound like a real truth to him. He just hoped that Misty hadn't tried to harm Lilja in any way or vice versa.

Him and Misty had immediately started running down a path to the waters edge the minute Ash had jumped. They had found both Ash and Lilja on the small beach. Only Ash was concious. Brock had carried Lilja up the hill back to the camp. Once there, noticed that both Ash and Lilja had been wounded, Lilja moreso than Ash. She had cut her right side on something sharp, quite possibly a rock. Luckly Brock had first aid supplies and had then both bandaged up. 

* * *

"Mmmmrrfff..." Lilja's eyes fluttered open and a blur of black and bright orange smeared her vision. She tried to turn over but a sharp pain grabbed her which felt like someone had thrust a burning knife in her side. Instantly the dream she had came rushing back. The only thing she couldn't remember about it was the face in the sky. Who was it?

"Lilja," A faint whisper broke the eerie silence. Her eyes adjusted to the lighting, which wasn't much. She could just barely make out two silhouettes by the fire and another closer to her. She recognized the closer one as Ash. Hastily, she tried to sit up, but a wave of dizziness made her fall back. Lilja noticed that she wore something that wasn't hers. It looked like one of Ash's shirts, but she wasn't sure. Suddenly she felt embarrased.

"Ash? Is that you?" That wasn't the most brilliant question in the world.

"Yeah. Yeah it's me. How are you?" He seemed to have a blanket as well. What had happened? Lilja couldn't remember.

"My side hurts... and I feel dizzy. What happened?" She gasped.

"You don't remember? You fell off the side of the cliff."

"How'd I get back up here then?"

"He jumped off after you." Brock cut in.

"You what?!" Lilja snapped up, pain in her side felt like a hot knife. "Did you really?" She didn't think he'd actually risk his life for her. Suddenly she remembered saying something to him before. Immediately her face grew warm from embarrasment.

She noticed Misty sitting by the fire, a disgruntled look on her face. Then she remembered how she got in the water in the first place.

_"I can tell by the way you look at him that you like him alot. Is that true?" Misty had asked._

_"Well, yeah, I guess."_

_"He doens't like you."_

_"How do you know?" She had muttered._

_"Because I've been with him since he started on his journey. We talk and stuff. I've asked him. He says, sure you're cute and everything, but you aren't his type. He wants me, you know."_

_"Why would he? I mean, you bug the hell out of him, and no offence, but you can be a brat sometimes."_

_Then Misty had slapped her across the face._

_"I hate to break it to you BITCH, but it's true. Why don't you just leave. Ash doesn't care about you that way, I don't know if Brock is even feeling like a friend toward you, and I certainly don't like you!"_

_Misty had stepped toward Lilja in an attempt to slap her again and she backed away, closer toward the edge of the cliff, not knowing how near she was to it. Instead of hitting her like it seemed she had inteneded, Misty shoved her. Hard. She then felt herself fall freely through the air. Before she even really realized what had happened, she hit the water, followed by a tearing pain in her right side, then she had felt no more._

Lilja glanced around. Misty had to be wrong. It looked like the only person here that didn't want her around was Misty. Brock didn't seem to mind, and Ash looked like he'd have a heart attack if she even pretended to faint.

She did feel tired though. And although she really didnt' want to scare Ash, or even Brock, she had to drift off into sleep.

* * *

Once again, Lilja awoke, but this time to the sound of talking. She glanced over toward the fire and saw that it was just Misty and Ash awake, Brock had sometime, while she was asleep, dozed off as well. Both of them were sitting on a log by the fire.

"So, about that bike," Misty started in a low tone.

Ash sighed.

"I told you, I'd get you a new one, but I really don't have enough money for one right now!" He hissed.

"No, no, I mean, it's okay. Don't bother." She slid closer to him and put her hand on his. "I don't really need a bike."

_'Damnit, look at her! She knows I love him, and now she's trying to take him away from me!'_ Then another thought occured to Lilja. Maybe Misty was right. They did seem awfully buddy buddy. Maybe he did like Misty better. They had been friends much longer than she had been with Ash.

Ash looked uncomfortable. Or as uncomfortable as one could look with a close friend. 

"I, uh... Misty." He gulped, as Misty took hold of his shoulders and turned him so he faced her. Being daring, she leaned toward him and kissed him. Not a slight peck, but a full mouth kiss. Ash's eyes popped open in surprise and Misty released him.

Lilja saw that kiss and turned around in her sleeping bag. No! He did like Misty better! He who never seemed to pay any more attention to Misty than he needed to. If this was true, then the rest about everyone not wanting her there was probably true as well.

She crawled out of the soft sleeping bag and over to her backpack and things. Lilja went to stand, and the pain in her side returned. Remembering that she wasn't wearing her own clothes, she looked down and saw that, yes, in fact she was wearing one of Ash's shirts and a pair of her own shorts. Her clothes she was wearing before, were somewhere, she didn't know exactly where. Her side felt stiff, as if something was wrapped around it. Sure enough, there was a tight bandage around her middle. She absently wondered what kind of wound was underneath.

Grabbing a piece of paper and a pen, she mindlessly scribbled a short note in the dark, and scooped her possesions together. She dressed as quickly as possible, and took one last look at the boy she knew she loved, who was now sleeping peacefully. She had told him she loved him, and then... and then this happened. 

Leaving the note on the log, she disappeared into the darkness without a sound.


	3. Secrets Exposed - Part 3 : Back to Cinna...

Secrets Exposed  
Part 3 : Back to Cinnabar  
By Freakachu 

"How is everything?" A man with dark green hair who looked to be in his mid-30's asked as he walked into the room. He adjusted the collar on the white lab coat he wore. In the wall to the far right was a mirror sided window, so they could see in the room beyind, but the young subject on the other side would only see her reflection.

"Everything is going smoothly. Glad we got her back or we'd have to start over again with a new one." The younger man nodded in the direction of the window. His light purple hair swished as he moved his head. 

"Well, Leander, it took us 3 years to get to where we were before we found her missing. Looked like a 5 year old when she was 3 though, so the injections were working. Another couple of years should do it, then Giovanni will finally have what he wants. Are you still giving her the injections?" The green haired man questioned.

Leander nodded.

"Three times a day. You were here the day they brought her in, to the day she escaped, Remus. Tell me, was she really only four when they brought her back?"

Remus picked up some papers from the table Leander was seated at, and flipped through them. There were also photos of the subject, at various times in her life stages. He pointed to one of the pages.

"The human-meowth hybrid is named Nyarthashi, of course, you already knew that. She was only a year and a half old when we got her. After succesfully splicing her genes with the meowth's, we started the injections to make her mature faster. Giovanni wanted a Rocket member who was fast, strong, and stealthy. He said choose whatever pokemon we desired, as long as it met the requirements. He wanted her ASAP, so we decided to speed the growth rate with the injections. She ran off about 3 years back, at that time she was only 3 years of age and looked 5. Two of Giovanni's team members found her and brought her back, but I don't believe she had escaped by herself. They also brought back what appeared to be a new type of pokemon. We ran a few tests on it, and discovered it to be an all-type pokemon named Freakachu. Giovanni by that time knew we had chosen a meowth to be the gene donor for Nyarthashi, but he insisted that we splice the Freakachu into her as well." He held up a picture of a rainbow pikachu type pokemon, which looked very unhappy in a cage.

Through Remus's long speel, Leander just sat and listened with awe. He was a new scientist in the field and had only been there a month.

"If you spliced the all-type pokemon into Nyarthashi, why doesn't it show? All I can see is meowth." Leander asked.

"Unfortunatly, we never had the chance. The pokemon escaped, under my watch. The little devil bit me, then escaped out the window! But if we had gotten the chance to make Nyarthashi better with the Freakachu, she would be unstoppable, powerful even. How old does she look now?"

Leander pondered that for a minute.

"Well, I'd say about 10 or 12." He finally answered.

Remus grinned.

"She's only 6. By the time she's 9, she'll have the stature and educaton of an18 or 19 year old. But the best thing is, the girl she was with when Vera and Sergio found her, was the girl who owned the Freakachu. She has 6 more, so we have another chance! The bad news is, we have no idea where this girl lives."

* * *

Misty sat up grogily. The night before brought a smile to her face. Jumping off a cliff was the dumbest things Ash had ever done, but he had done it for that girl. Misty didn't think he'd ever do that for her. Thinking of which, she turned to where Lilja was sleeping, and saw that she wasn't there. Not her, not her sleeping bag. Sharply turning her head to where the group left their bags in a pile, she noticed that Lilja's was gone. She hoped that Lilja wasn't in the woods somewhere, gettin a bug to scare her with. After last night, Misty expected some sort of revenge for what had said to Lilja. Misty turned her head, and something caught her eye. There, over by the log. It looked like a piece of paper. She squirmed over, still half in her sleeping bag and picked it up. It was damp from the dew, and the writing was slightly smudged.

_" I'm sorry you guys, but I have to leave. I'm going back to Cinnabar to take over my Uncles job as Gym Leader. To Ash, I will miss you greatly. Maybe someday we will see each other again. What I said to you last night I meant. I hope you don't hate me for being outright. It seems you like Misty more than I thought. I was starting to really like you alot, but I see that it doesn't matter to you. That's one of the reasons I'm leaving._

_Forever yours,  
Lilja "_

Misty chuckled to herself. 

_'So she left, eh? Makes it easier for me, now that she's not in the way. I love Ash more than she or anyone else can.'_

She crumpled the note up and stuffed it in her little red backpack.

* * *

"Chuuuuuu." The multicolored chu felt as unhappy as it's trainer looked. It waddled along beside her as she walked, practically dragging her knapsack on the gound. It was late, she had been walking for two days. Stuck in the forest, and no light to see by.

"Whats the matter, Freaka? I'm tired, we're going back to Cinnabar,ok?" She said, a little angrily. Freakachu flattened it's ears against its head and looked pittiful.

"Freakaaaaaa..."

Lilja sighed.

"I didn't mean to snap at you. Going with Ash, Brock and Misty was a mistake. I should have stayed in Cinnabar."

"Freakachu, freaka fre, chu chu chuuuuu!" Freakachu was trying to tell her something, waving it's arms around and making a deal of something. Teleport! It was saying. Remember, you can teleport!

Lilja hadn't forgotten that she could teleport. The last time she had, she had scared the crap out of Nyarthashi. Of course, Lilja was only eight at the time, and could never teleport long distances. It used up too much of her energy.

"I can't, it's too far." She explained to the rodent. 

Freakachu slapped her backpack.

"Freakachu, freakachu, freakachu!"

"Freakachu, eh? That's right, you can teleport. But doesn't it use up alot of your energy?"

Freakachu kept slapping her backpack. Lilja, understanding at last what it was Freakachu meant, took seven rainbow pokeballs out of her backapack. Tossing them on the ground, out came five Freakachu and two Taichu.

"That's a great idea Freakachu." Try as she might, she couldn't make herself sound even remotely cheerful.

The Taichu and Freakachu started chittering with one another and a couple seconds later, they had all combined their teleportation powers, and Lilja found herself in a new place. A quick glance around in the dark told her that she was in her backyard. Quickly she recalled her pokemon, and slumped down on the cool dark grass. The past few days events played in her mind and soon she found herself in tears again. She sat sobbing on the ground for a couple minutes. Maybe a hot shower would make her feel better. Her long dark red hair felt dirty, so maybe she should wash up, even though it was 4 in the morining.

She opened the door as quietly as possible, but the door squeaked like the dickens. She stepped into the front hall and immediately her sweater caught on something. It was a sweater Blaine had given her. He said that her mother knitted it for herself, but then just before she died, gave it to him to give to Lilja when she was big enough to wear it. She tugged at the red garment to loosen it and heard a small ripping sound.

"Shit!" She'd had it for a while, even before she started on her journey. It was the only thing of her mothers that she ever had. Once again, this seemed too much, and she started sniffling again. All of a sudden, brightness enveloped her, and she felt like a deer in headlights. Someone was in the house besides her! Before her eyes could adjust to the light change, a familiar voice rang out. 

"Lilja? Is that you? My, you are a mess."

Lilja blinked twice and looked up.

"Uncle Blaine?"

"Didn't you leave with that boy and his friends quite a while ago? I thought you were acompanying them on their journey."

Tears filled her eyes, and she took a step toward him, and threw her arms around his waist.

"Uncle Blaine, they didn't want me there!" She choked.

He hesitated, then hugged her back. He had never felt fatherly toward her, he didn't have to, he was her uncle.

"It's okay, Lil. You can go on your own journey." 

Lilja looked up at her uncle, confused.

"But I already have, and I got 7 badges. Remember? I left when I was eight." She reminded him. Old age has a tendancy to make you forget, she pondered. He's going senile. She thought it with affection dispite the fact that it might be the truth. He was also going bald, and was already grey, what hair he had left. "I want to stay and help you with the gym. Can I become the gym leader?"

Blaine held her by the shoulders at an arms lenght. 

"You're growing up, faster than I know what to do with you. You can't just stay around here all your life, as much as I want you around. There's another league you can enter." He explained.

Lilja brightened a tiny bit, although she was tired enough to fall asleep right there, and still felt terrible now that she thought Ash didn't like her.

"Really? Where is it?"

"You look beat, in more ways than one. Get some sleep and we'll talk about it in the morning, ok?" Blaine responded.

Lilja nodded, and toted her things up to her room.

* * *

The space was small, not spacious enough for someone around the age of twelve to run around in. The person who occupied the space wasn't twelve, however, but six. So instead of running around, banging on the walls like she did when she was put in this room, she sat and put together a puzzle. Like a four year old would do. There were also blocks, coloring books and crayons. There wasn't anything in the room for a twelve year old to play with, but rather boring toddler toys. She looked toward the giant mirror on the far wall.

_'They think I don't know that's a window that they're watching me through? Bakani. I know alot more than they think.' _

Nyarthashi could never forget the girl who had once saved her from this hell. But then they had found her and brought her back. Everyday, she suffered the numerous injections. She used to struggle with the man who did them, but finally gave up. After all, she was feeling stronger every waking day. All the time, she was planning her escape again. She carefully fit a sky printed cardboard piece into the remaining put together sky in the puzzle.

In a little while, maybe a week, she'd make her move and escape. They'd be the first to die.


	4. Secrets Exposed - Part 4 : Lost Love, Ne...

Secrets Exposed  
Part 4 : Lost Love, New Travels  
By Freakachu 

_::Authors note:: Contains scenes of graphic violence. _

Ash sat on a rock while Brock sent Misty to go fill up the water canteens which were almost empty. Secretly, he wanted her to leave for a bit, so he could have a talk with Ash. Something was really bothering him, he wouldn't eat and he barely talked which was completely unlike him.

"Ash are you okay?"

"I'm fine." He muttered with his head in his hands, and pikachu on his back.

"You don't look okay. Does this have something to do with Lilja leaving?" Brock questioned.

Ash sighed.

"Yeah. She left okay? She didn't tell me where she was going, didn't leave a note," He glanced around quickly to make sure no one else was around, "And, and I love her."

Brock was shocked. He knew that maybe Ash had just a tiny crush on her, but he didn't think he was that far gone. Now that Ash told him, Brock could see in his eyes how he felt. He also had a feeling that Ash didn't want Misty to know how strongly he felt about Lilja. Brock knew that Misty dreamed over Ash, and she wanted him real badly. He sighed. What could he say?

"You don't even know why she left? She never said anything to you that night?" 

"No, except, oh, nothing. Wait a minute! Damn!" Ash's mind flashed back to that night. Misty had kissed him! Has Lilja seen? Impossible, she'd been sleeping. Anyway, he hadn't wanted Misty to do that, she was just being her usual compulsive self. Lilja had told him that she loved him. And before he could tell her the same, she had passed out. He didn't get the chance to tell her, and now that she was gone, he'd probably never find her to tell her.

* * *

Lilja sat at hte breakfast table, the morining sunlight streamed through the big window with a golden glow. Blaine was already down at the gym, leaving her to sleep in because she was so tired the night before. She spooned the now soggy cereal into her mouth, her hair hanging in her face which was damp from that mornings shower. Two Freakachu sat on the table, one eating spilled cereal off the table, the other with it's head in the box. She probably looked as horrible as she felt. After eating, she made her way to Cinnabar Gym, still feeling depressed, and three Freakas following her. Only the thought of the awaiting Pokemon League lifted her spirits at all.

"Hi Lilja!" Jerry called. Lilja turned around and Jerry jogged up to her. The sun reflected off his brown hair, and made it shone. He held his arms wide, obviously wanting to hug her. She waved to him, and tried to excape but he tackled her in a vice grip. 

"I missed you." He replied in response to her squirming. Of course, Jerry was her friend, but he was going overboard. Jerry seemed to like her alot more than a friend, and didn't mind showing it. Finally he let her go, and she went into the gym.

"Maaaaaagggg!" Magmar droned, happy to see her when it saw her enter. It ran up to her and hugged her leg. She grinned halfheartedly at it, then went to find her uncle. She found him in the barn, with the other pokemon.

"Uncle Blaine? You were going to tell me about the league?" She asked.

"Ah, yes I was. You didn't go to the Indigo League did you?"

Lilja shook her head.

"I thought not. Well, you can either go there in two months, or you can leave right now and start collecting badges for the Jolt League or the Rainbow League. The towns in the Rainbow region are rather nice if I do say so mys-" He was interupted by Lilja, who was getting impatient. One of the chus was tugging on her pants.

"Rainbow League? Isn't that west of here?" She asked.

"No, it's to the east. The Jolt League is to the west."

Lilja thought about it. As much as she wanted to stay now, she equally wanted to start training again. Finally, she consulted Blaine again.

"Which do you recomend?"

"Well, the Jolt League is pretty good. But mind you, so is the Rainbow League. It's really up to you." So much for help from him.

Lilja decided on the Rainbow League. It sounded glamorous enough. She escaped back home, Magmar and the chus chasing her, and jumped on her computer to look up the Rainbow League.

Interesting. The only league that has a Miko (Priestess) to start the ceremonies. Only for the last 9 years, there was no Miko since the last one had disappeared. 

She turned on the pokemon depsition/withdrawal system beside the computer and the program used to run it. She withdrew all her pokemon. Tossing clean clothes and the like into her backpack, she then ran out the door with six of her pokemon with her, the rest left home to wander around, and started out the door on another journey.

* * *

Nyarthashi impatiently waited for the right time to break out of the compound she was being held at in an underground lab in Viridian. She couldn't see the scientist in the other room, the mirrored window prevented that. But her hearing had become very acute, and she could hear the slow steady breathing one uses when sleeping. Nyarthashi looked at waht she was wearing. Soft soled sneakers, jeans that were a bit too big (must have once belonged to one of the scientists's kids), and a long sleeved blue shirt. The time was right. 

Leaping into the air, much higher than a normal 12 year old could, she planted a swift kick on the mirror/window and sent a spray of glass into the next room. The scientist didn't have time to wake up and react before Nyarthashi's arm sliced through the air and connected with his neck, making a sick cracking sound. He hadn't any time to scream, or alert the others, but instead, crumpled to the floor in a heap. She noticed the computer on the desk and wondered if it held information about her she didn't know. Flicking it on, she did a search on her name. It was a good thing she was a fast learner, she knew about computers. She knew more about them than the guy she had just finished, and he had worked with them for quite a bit longer than she had lived. She saw one document on her, and it was long enough that she would be hours readin it. She pulled open a desk drawer and looked inside. Paperclips, blank notepads, pens, and a box of floppy disks. Nyarthashi pulled one out and stuck it into the machine. She copied the file to the disk, wiped the file from the harddrive then turned it off. She slipped the disk into her pocket.

_'It wouldn't hurt to destroy the whole damn computer, but I've got to get out of here. Now.'_

She wiggled the doorknob and found it locked from the outside. Obviously it was a safety precaution. This man on the inside had a set of keys. Nyarthashi realized that they had only known a fraction of her strength. She was much stronger and dangerous than they thought. Which meant, she had a huge advantage over them. She slamed her body against the door, and it splintered off its hinges. Looking left and right revealed to her that there was no one around at this time. Her eyes were acustomed to the dark. She could see in the dark even better than she could in the daylight. Choosing left as the way to go, she ran down the hall at a fair speed. Halfway down the hall, she remembered concidering to break the computer, and realized that wouldn't do much. There were more computers, one of them the master of a network. That same file as she deleted from that computer was probably on the whole network. Really, she should total the master computer. But yet, for the same reason as before, she decided not to.

"Oh my! What are you doing out?!" A woman hollered as she rounded the corner and came face to face with her worst nightmare.

It was unfortunate that these people at the lab worked for Giovanni. Nyarthashi had met him once, about a year ago, and didn't like the man. He was evil, and wanted to use her for his own evil purposes. Nyarthashi grabbed the womans arm and twisted it behind her back, her other hand over the womans mouth.

"If you promise not to yell, I'll release you, ok?"

The woman nodded and looked like she was about to faint. Nyarthashi slowly took her hand away from the womans mouth.

"You must show me the way to get out of here. Can you do that?" She hissed.

Almost in tears, the woman choked out her answer.

"No, I can't. They'll kill me to get to you if they have to. You aren't safe."

Nyarthashi thought about it for a second, and finally came up with a plan. A length of rope was on a cart nearby.

"Bind my hands and pretend you're taking me to another place." She handed the woman the rope. Trembling, the woman took it and started wrapping it around her hands. When finished, they started down the hall, the whole time the woman looked as if she were going to weep.

They entered the main room which had the door to the outside. The whole time down the hall, they hadn't run into another person. The reason for this was simple. Most, if not everyone, was in this room. They saw her immediately and started towards the two, knowing something was wrong. About half drew tranquilizer guns, and aimed them at her. 

She snapped the rope tethering her hands together and swung her leg up to gain momentum. Her second leg then rose to connect with the jaw of one man, and down he went. While everyone stopped, stunned, she swiftly reached for the next nearest person and snapped their neck around. People started screaming and the next person met a cruel fate when Nyarthashi grabbed a steel rod from nearby and poked it at them. The rod went straight through, and they dropped to their knees, gasping, drowning in their own blood. 

Before she could slaughter anyone else, she saw a window close by. Jumping up, she grabbed onto a metal water pipe going the length of the room and swung her feet towards the window. The second she felt the glass collapse, she pulled down hard on the pipe and went sailing out the window into some bushes, leaving whoever was alive in the building to have a freezing cold shower.

* * *

Lilja had gotten one of her Freakachu and Taichu to teleport her as far as they could, her teleporting also, and ended up in the middle of Cerulean City. She entered the Pokemon Center and went straight to the PC.

*Bling* The computer made it's friendly noise telling her it was ready and willing to do what she wanted. The first thing it asked for was her licence number. She punched it in, and hit enter. A picture of a happy PC popped up in her face, along with a little note. 'Bills PC upgraded! Now contains Win98 and internet!'

Lilja still wondered who Bill was. She didn't know the guy, yet was using his PC. Strange.

"WHO THE HELL IS BILL?!" She shouted to herself, no one else was in the center to hear except a very annoyed Nurse Joy.

When she was finished exchanging pokemon, she logged out, and left the center, taking a northern path.

* * *

Staring out into the cool blue expanse of ocean in the far distance, sitting on a rock by his house, Ash felt lonely. He wasn't really, Misty and Brock were with him all the time, but it wasn't the same. He almost had someone he could confide in with other stuff, like love for instance. Of course, he had known Misty for a long time, almost 2 years. But he never had any real romantic interest in her. Oh, he knew for a fact that she liked him, and she proved it too. Maybe if he hadn't met Lilja, he wouldn't have minded that kiss. But he did. He wanted it to have been Lilja, not Misty. He leaned over, and picked up a smooth round stone that was in the grass and hurled it as far as he could. He could make out a land mass, far on the horizon. Cinnabar? Surely. Lilja lived on Cinnabar. Maybe she went back there. He ran into the house and grabbed a phone book.

"Ash, what are you doing?" Misty asked, annoyed, as he ran by and bumped into her.

"Nothing!" He called, as he raced up to his room and closed the door behind him. His mother had met Lilja the time they came back to visit after Ash went to Viridian again to win his earth badge, and before they went to Prussian Town to visit his friend Arti, who was also Gary's girlfriend.

He rapidly flipped through the pages until he came across the section for Cinnabar Island, and from there, found the number for the Cinnabar Gym. His fingers were itching, and he rushed back downstairs to use the videophone to punch the number in.

The phone started ringing, and Ash impatiently swayed from one foot to the other.

"Hello?" Blaine appeared on the video phone.

"Blaine? Is Lilja there? I have to talk to her, it's extremely important!" He hissed, half whispering, half yelling, if it was possible to.

Blaine looked at Ash as if he had never seen him before. A minute later, he seemed to recognize him, and smiled.

"Sorry, Ash, but she left for the Rainbow League a couple days ago."

Ash glanced down at his feet.

"Oh. Well, thanks anyway. Bye." 

"Bye Ash."

He hung up the phone and looked out the window. A thought occured to him. Maybe instead of going to the Indigo Pokemon League compititions, he'd go join the Rainbow League. 

* * *

Three of her Freakachu waddled beside her, along with her Liquiot, and jibbered back and forth to each other while they walked.

"Whats this?" Lilja looked up and in front of her was a lighthouse on a high cliff. She'd been walking for a while, rather than teleporting again. The scenery would be nice along the way, so she'd decided to walk the whole distance there. It had been a week since she had left Cerulean, and had also been sleeping on the ground. Not something she prefered, but there were no houses around that she had passed once she had gotten out of town. The lighthouse wasn't surprising, since the ocean was nearby, but still, Lilja wondered if it had a keeper, or if it were one of the newer computerized lighthouses.

It was starting to get dusk and also raining. Lilja was tired and hungry. Hopefully someone lived there, nice enough to give her shelter for the night. She rapped on the large wooden door, just as one of the Freakachu fell asleep at her feet. There was no answer. Lilja shrugged, and picked up a large rock. Vandalism was throwing rocks through windows, not using one to bang on a heavy door. So that's what she used it for. The door opened and a green haired young man looked out.

"Can I help you?" He looked her over, noticing that she was soaked.

Lilja shivered and nodded, picking up the sleeping Chu. The other two seemed jittery in the rain, but Liquiot liked it.

"Oh my, you seem like you need a bed for the night. Come in right away before you freeze!" He exclaimed.

The interior of the lighthouse was composed of mostly expensive wood furniture. Except for its enormous size, it felt like a cozy cabin. A fire blazed in a gigantic fireplace on the opposite wall. She sank down in a soft chair with wood framing.

The man held out his hand to her while she sat.

"I'm Bill." He smiled. Lilja gasped, and despite her tired legs, she jumped up in surprise.

"Bill? THE Bill of "Bill's PC"?!" He nodded, and she grinned. "So you're who Bill is! I've been wondering who the Bill who owns Bill's PC is!"

Bill laughed. He stopped when he noticed the Freakachu and Liquiot sleeping on the floor and his eyes widened. He knelt down and put his hand out.

"May I?" He asked her.

Lilja nodded, and Bill picked up a sleeping Freakachu. He turned it around to look at it's back, then turned it again to face him.

"Well, I've never seen such a wonderous pokemon!" He breathed, "Where on earth did you get them?" 

Lilja went on to explain to Bill how she ended up with Taichu and then Freakachu. She also explained about her Liquiot. Soon after her story, Bill left, and returned with bedding.

"You can sleep here, on the sofa. Tommorow you can tell me more about these wonderful creatures!" Bill looked as if he wouldn't get to sleep that night, or ever. He was so excited about the prospect of studying a new and unusual pokemon that he didn't seem tired at all.

After the frenzy of finally meeting the owner of "Bill's PC", Lilja fell asleep with thoughts of the Rainbow League, and also, dreams of Ash.


	5. Secrets Exposed - Part 5 : A Hoedown?!

Secrets Exposed  
Part 5 : A Hoedown?!  
By Freakachu 

_:: Authors note:: In 'How Freakachu Came to Be' I mentioned Lilja catching various pokemon, and used the japanese names for them because they weren't translated yet. In this fanfic (I should have made this speech from the very first chapter ... ^_^;;) I've used the english names because people will soon become more familliar with them. o^_^o   
:: End annoying authors comment::_

Nyarthashi trod through the undergrowth. She wanted to get as far away fromViridian as possible. Killing didn't seem to bother her one tiny bit, and she felt no guilt. The people had it coming, and she had felt rage. Of course, the injections helped to make her stronger, and mature faster. She was also a fast learner though, and even after a month of martial arts training, she was already almost as good as any blackbelt. Giovanni had instructions for her to learn self defense, and how to kill people. He had been trying to get a perfect warrior, to steal rare pokemon, and to kill secretly if neccesary. What he didn't count on, was her excaping and causing a riot.

The leaves on the trees dripped with dew, and above the tops of the trees, the stars twinkled, unjudging of her, and not caring of the mass murder she had commited a week or so ago. It felt good to be free, like she felt when she was with the girl who had taken her from the Cinnabar Lab. She could remember her name, and pronounced it in her mind. Leel-ya. Of course, Lilja had Freakachu, and Giovanni wanted them for himself. Nyarthashi had no doubt that Giovanni had scouts out for her and her Freakachu, maybe they've been looking for her for awhile. Nyarthashi knew Rockets, and understood that if they found her, and she refused to give her Freakachu up (which she would, Nyarthy was positive) they'd kill her on the spot. She had to find Lilja first, and protect her. Obviously they didn't have her, or she would have heard talk about it.

Nyarthashi had a huge advantage. She knew how strong Rockets were. She trained with them, and in her training, had wounded alot of them, pretending it was unintentional. Although she had never killed any in training, she had wanted to, badly. She also knew Lilja, and was certain that she wouldn't give up her chu's to Team Rocket if she could help it. Lilja probably needed help to fend them off. That's why she had to find her as soon as possible.

* * *

Misty sighed as she followed Ash and Brock through Viridian Forest. This wasn't her first time through here, and she didn't like it any better than before. Bugs, bugs everywhere. And why was she even bothering to follow them around anymore? The only reason Ash was travelling again was to find that bimbo. Misty had kissed him that night, for him to warm up to her. Instead, it seemed to have bothered him endlessly. He really only talked to Pikachu now, and sometimes on rare occasions, Brock. Never to her. It was like he was scared of her. The real reason she was following him though, was because she did truly love him. She couldn't stand being away from him for long. He had his mind somewhere else of course, and it pained her.

_'Why can't you see me, Ash? I'm right here, and I need you! I want you terribly!'_

Naturally, he couldn't hear her thoughts, and probably didn't care. He was being heartless.

What Misty didn't notice was, that Ash was hurting in his own way. 

* * *

Bill had been psyched to be given a Freakachu as a gift of thanks from Lilja before she left. He promised to take good care of it, and find out more about this strange species. She hadn't given him one that was following her, but used his phone to call her uncle and have one of them transported over. Now, she walked under the dark canopy of tree branches, the sun filtering through, and remembered the kindness Bill had shown her. He wasn't a bad guy, that Bill. She had always thought that the guy who owned Bills PC was a nerdy dork or worse. But Bill had been an extremely intellegent man. He didn't seem old, maybe mid-twenties. The forest floor was covered in a thick carpet of green three leaf clovers, and the atmospere smelled like rain, and wet dirt. Woodsy, of course. 

Lilja's mind wandered back to Ash. What was he doing now? Probably in the Indigo League about now. He had talked about it so much, and was excited about it. Maybe he was with Misty. That girl had pissed her off, in more ways than one. She felt a deep sadness overwhelm her. Misty was probably there with him, and she was here. Alone, except for her pokemon. Misty had a chance with Ash. She had the fragile type of good looks, but in no way was she herself fragile. She had a mouth on her like a cannon and could shoot off words to make people feel completely opposite of what they had felt before, although she didn't seem to say things like that very often. Only that one time, that night when Misty went completely off her rocker and had shoved her over the side of the precipice. 

She flopped down among the thick clover, and took off her shoes. The cool grass felt nice on her tired feet. Lilja layed flat out on the ground and looked up to the tops of the trees. Her chu's ran around, chasing each other, and their own flaming tails. She let out the other pokemon she had with her. Her Ditto, Eevee and Cleffa. The Ditto's name was Xerox, and that was because it was a little insane. She had caught it awhile ago, in Mount Moon, where it was terrorizing some very cute Clefaries and Clefables. The Clef's then awarded her with a Cleffa (pre evolution Clefairy) for defeating the Ditto. She hadn't had a bed to sleep in since being at Bill's over a month ago, and felt the engery within her drain away.

Coldness began to creep apon her, and her eyes popped open. She hadn't even noticed she had fallen asleep. All her pokemon she had with her were all sleeping as well, in various different places. The forest was darker now, the sun setting. She gathered her pokemon up into their pokeballs and began walking once more. Soon the trees came to an end abruptly, and she found herself on the edge of a large field. She couldn't believe what she saw in the distance. Lights! Quite possibly from a city. She pulled a map from her coat pocket and unfolded it. Sure enough, Aqua City was just ahead. By the time she got there though, it would be almost daylight. 

* * *

"What do you mean, 'I'm not sure which way to go'?! Come on, you live in the mountains for Christ's sake. I'm pretty sure you can find your way through some measly forest!" Vera hollered at the cowering Cletus. Her and Sergio had teamed up with Zeke and Cletus in a better attempt to find the girl they were looking for under Giovanni's orders. The other sets of partners on the team also joined into groups of four or more. Jessie and James were with Cassidy and Butch, much to all of their arguing with the boss. 

"Sorry, I din' mean to upset ya. But I don't know this here woods. I never bin through here before."

The whole gang , except Sergio, was exasperated for different reasons. Cletus's parent's had been outraged at him becoming a rocket and had forbidden him to return until he turned his uniform in. Zeke was upset because he hated being lost. Something about a fear of wild pokemon, which was strange because he also lived up in the mountains near Cletus and there were plenty of savage pokemon there. Vera was miffed as well. The Chansey she had stolen for the boss had been given back to her by Giovanni as a reward for bringing in a bunch of rare pokemon, but had immediately taken a liking to Sergio the second it saw him. It wouldn't go back in it's pokeball when Sergio was around. Instead, it followed him everywhere, and that was fine for him because he loved it with a passion. Chansey was his most favorite pokemon, and he didn't have one of his own. He spent the days that they were lost just sitting there hugging the thing, and it hugged him right back!

"Damn this. I though ya had a map. Ya tole me ya had a map!" Zeke snapped at Cletus. He walked on ahead of the others, leaving Vera to mutter into her purse, Cletus to look again to see if he had something to help them out of the woods, and Sergio hugging Vera's Chansey. He wandered behind a grove of trees and turned to see if the others were coming. Still walking backwards, he bumped into something and knocked it down.

"Oof!" The figure on the ground choked. Zeke immediately turned around and there was James staring up at him, wearing... whatever the hell that was.. a dress?! And makeup?

"Holy hell! What are ya doin', boy? Lookin' fer men?!" He gasped.

James picked himself up off the ground and dusted his dress off.

"I happen to be following someone!" He replied arrogantly.

Zeke laughed.

"Who? Farmer Joe?" He pointed to James's dress, which was blue, and had a country look to it. Something that Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz" would probably wear.

A twig behind Zeke snapped and then came a sound of surprise.

"Oh my GOD! James is dressed like a WOMAN!" Vera stood there and giggled. "I point and laugh at you, James!" She did so.

"What's so funny?" Cassidy came up behind James.

By this time, Sergio and Cletus had arrived and were also laughing at James. Apparently, none of them knew of James's habit of dressing like a female.

"I'll have you know I dress like this alot!" James remarked, defensively. 

This just made everyone laugh harder, except for Cassidy. She looked like she was trying not to laugh.

Cassidy whacked James in the back of the head.

"You are so embarrasing to have around." 

Sergio looked around at everyone and noticed that a couple of them were missing.

"Where's Jessie and Butch?" He asked anyone who was listening.

"Right here, Chansey Boy." Jessie proclaimed as she dragged Butch into the clearing by his leg. "I can't stand another minute in this creepy forest with Butch, and especially her!" She dropped Butch and pointed at Cassidy.

"I'm glad the feeling is mutual!" Cassidy pulled her eyelid down and stuck her tongue out at Jessie.

"Hey, hey, you gals, no need'a bicker and such." Cletus stepped between them. "Ya know what this group needs, Zeke?"

"What?"

"We needs'ta have a good ol' fashioned hoedown!" Cletus pulled a big brown jug and a bow shaped object with a string on it out of the bag he was carrying. 

Vera facefaulted. "You mean to tell me, that instead of carrying a map, or a compass, or something useful, you have all that junk in there?!"

Zeke pulled a harmonica from his pocket and a washboard from his bag.

"Not this again!" Sergio hid behind Chansey. "He's been playing that damn harmonica ever since we left Vermillion!" He covered his ears.

Cletus started blowing on the jug, and strumming the pittiful string, while Zeke blew on the harmonica and ran a stick up and down the washboard, which was conveniently strapped on him with a rope. He started dancing around like a maniac, banging on the washboard and tooting his harmonica. Cletus stopped with the jug long enough to yell to his fellow hill-billy.

"Too bad yer pa ain't here with his fiddle! He sure knew how ta livin' up a good party!"

James, thinking this was really fun, started dancing around as well, fitting in perfectly with his country style dress and pigtails.He broke into song, singing "Cotton Eye Joe", much to everyone's discomfort.

James grabbed Jessie, his arm looped through hers, and slung her around. A grin spread across Butch's face, and he started tapping his foot to the lively tune. Cassidy saw, and socked him over the head with her fist, where he sunk to the ground and drooled.

"James!" Jessie hollored over the noise, "James, you moron, let go of me!" James spun Jessie around and toward Vera and Sergio. He grabbed Vera as well, and began jumping around in a circle with Vera on one arm and Jessie on the other. Sergio shrugged and sighed.


	6. Secrets Exposed - Part 6 : Splashdown in...

Secrets Exposed  
Part 6 : Splashdown in Aqua City  
By Freakachu 

_::Authors comment:: I know, there's a bloody authors note in practically every part now. =P But this time I'd just like to point out, that since this fic doesn't follow the plot line, Brock doesn't go and stay with Professor Ivy, but instead returns home. All in all, Brock still leaves. o^_^o Also, battle scenes bore me to death, but I'll try to do my best ::End bakani (foolish) authors comment::_

"Do you really have to leave Brock?" Ash asked his old friend.

Brock nodded. "I'm afraid so."

They were back in Pewter City, where Brock had lived and taken care of his younger brothers and sisters. Now, after visiting his family, he found out that his father wasn't well, and needed help with the children. Pikachu stood on Ash's shoulders, with one paw on his head with the other paw extended out towards Brock. Brock shook Pikachu's paw, and then Ash's hand, slipping him a piece of paper, which Ash stuffed in his pocket.

"Bye you guys, and bye Togepi," Brock waved as he went into his house. "Have a good trip."

Ash turned to go, and Misty was already heading away, with Togepi in her arms. While Misty was farther ahead, Ash tugged the paper from his pocket and unfolded it.

_"I hope you find her, Ash.  
-Brock"_

"What's that Brock gave you?" Misty asked curiously. 

_'Damn,' _He cursed mentally, _'She saw the paper, she isn't stupid.' _

Ash put his arm behind his head and laughed nervously. 

"Oh, this?" He waved the paper, "It's just Brock's phone number, in case I ever have to call him."

Misty didn't look all that convinced, but she refrained from any further questions, and kept walking, only she waited for Ash, and walked beside him, their footsteps a slow rhythm on the ground.

* * *

Sighing, and studying the design of the gym before her, Lilja sat on a wooden bench and waited. She had been about to go up the stairs to the gym, when a smaller girl had ran up ahead of her and gotten there first. Since there could only be one match at a time, and the kid seemed to be in a hurry, Lilja had let the girl go, without even bothering to tell her that she had been there first. She scuffed her sandals on the ground, which was sand because Aqua City was right on the water, and the gym was built near the beach. The three Freakachu sat in the sand and made castles to pass the time.

The door of the gym opened and the girl came pouting out, obviously unhappy about the outcome of the match. She walked up to the bench where Lilja sat.

"I'm sorry for rushing in there ahead of you." She stated, looking appologetic. The girl looked to be about a year or so younger than her, with shiny raspberry colored hair pulled back into a ponytail.

"That's okay. Hey, did you win your match?" querried Lilja.

The girl looked down at her feet which were bare. "No, I only had a Cyndaquil, an Ekans, and a Jigglypuff. Sita has really strong water pokemon. By the way, my name's Flora. What's yours?"

"Lilja. Say, what badge does Sita give you if you win?"

Flora plopped down on the bench beside her. "She gives you the Dew Badge. I wish I could win it. You're going to compete in the Rainbow League then right?"

Lilja nodded. "How many badges do you have?"

"I don't have any yet, because I just started training. I want to get enough badges to battle in the Rainbow Leage. You need at least six. Do you have any?" 

Just as Lilja was about to say that she didn't, one of her Freakachu landed in her lap. Apparently, it had been trying to fly on those little pink wings.

Flora's expression went completely blank, then she gasped.

"Is that yours?" She pointed to Freakachu, amazed.

"Yeah," Lilja put the Freakachu on the ground with the other two, causing Flora to have a fit.

"Ooooooh! They are so cute! Can I pet one?" Lilja sat one on Flora's lap, and she proceeded to scratch it behind it's big blue vaporeon ears.

"You better get to your match," Flora pointed out after a couple more minutes, "Sita'll be leaving for a break soon."

Lilja had forgotten that she was there for a match. She took off for the gym, two of the Freakachu running behind her, and the one that had tried to fly before, succeeding with it's wings and took flight after her.

* * *

After having to attend Cletus and Zeke's jig, the two Team Rocket groups decided to stick together, and ended up running into the two 'twerps' in Cerulean city.

"To protect/infect the world from/with de-" 

"What the hell are you doing?" Sergio asked Jessie and Cassidy quizzically. The two had started a motto of some sort, letting the two kids spot them, and give them time enough to walk away. Vera, Sergio, Cletus and Zeke were all dressed in normal everyday clothes, and had already snagged a bunch of pokeballs from oblivous trainers, just by walking by and bumping into them, then appologising after the pokemon were safely with them. The others, however, insisted on wearing their uniforms in public, and they ended up with no stolen pokemon at all. It seemed that most everyone knew about Team Rocket nowadays, and people avoided them. The only way to work the crowds was to go undercover.

"Reciting the motto!" Jessie and Cassidy yelled in unison, then glared at each other.

"Your motto is all wrong!" Cassidy shook her fist at Jessie, "Say it right, or don't say it at all!"

Jessie's eyes flared. "I'm saying it wrong?! You and Butch mutilated the Team Rocket motto!"

"Yeah!" James jumped in. "You two have ruined Team Rocket tradition."

Sergio put his arm between the two girls who looked like they were going to bite each others heads off.

"There is no motto. Where did you guys come up with such a thing? All you guys are doing, is informing everyone that we're here, and people know that Team Rocket steal pokemon. Jessie, Cassidy, change out of those uniforms unless you're in TRHQ. Then, and only then do they need to be worn. You guys change too." He waved toward James and Butch.

Cletus snapped the strap on his dirty overalls. "See, I'm a wearin' reg-u-lar everyday clothes. Which reminds me, I gotsta buy me some new duds." He looked down at the hole in his knee.

Vera looked disgusted, and backed away from Cletus. At least Zeke had the decency to wear clean stuff. Maybe he wasn't so bad. She turned to Sergio. "Does this dress make me look fat?"

Zeke looked her over. "Yep." 

He soon found himself on the ground with a lump on his head. "I wasn't asking you, moron." She snapped. 

"You look fine." Sergio complimented, and Vera looked smug. "Much better." 

* * *

"You challenge me?" The gym leader cooed, with a slight Indian accent.

"Yeah, I do." Lilja called back.

Sita sat back in a chair by the side of the gym pool and crossed her legs. She seemed to be about 15, and quite tall. Her dark chestnut hair was about shoulder lenght, and her eyes were colored like chocolate and slighly ovalish. Sita's skin was the color of coffee with cream in it, and she had a smooth way of moving, like she was underwater.

She shrugged. "Well, then lets start. First, it's a three on three match. Second, how much are you willing to bet?"

"Bet?!" Astounded, Lilja had to stop herself from falling in the pool.

"Yes. Bet. In the Rainbow League gyms, if trainers want to battle, they have to settle on a bet, and show that they have that money and are willing to give it up if and when they lose. If they cannot produce money, they cannot battle.If the challenger wins, the leader pays their end of the bet." Sita explained.

"But-but why? The Indigo League gyms don't use that system, and neither do any of the other leagues!" No one had told Lilja that the Rainbow League gyms based their battles on bets. 

"I'm sure in time they will. First of all, gym leaders need money to start their gym, or they inherit it from their parents. But they still need money to keep the gym running, and to pay for the official badges to be made. It's not a cheap process, so that's how it works. I imagine that the other leagues give loans to gym leaders. To keep the money coming in, you have to be a good gym leader." She rambled.

Lilja considered this. Gym leaders needed money, and what better way to make a profit, is to make bets on matches. She nodded. "Okay, well I'll bet you three dollars then."

"Show your three dollars, and I'll show mine." Sita held up her money for Lilja to see. Lilja found three dollars of her own and held it up. "Fine, fine. Okay then. You may call out your first pokemon."

The three Freakachu were lounging by the wall, carrying on some conversation, until Lilja interupted them by calling one to come battle.

"Chuu freaka fre chu ka!" (It's not my turn!) The middle Freakachu replied.

"Freaka cha chu ka." (I'll go then.) The first one yawned and waddled over.

"Freeeee ka!" (Haaaaave fun!) The last one yelled.

The first Freakachu gave the others the thumbs up sign, and turned toward the pool.

"That is a strange pokemon you have. Go Vaporeon!" A sleek and marine blue vaporeon appeared in the water.

"Freaaaaaakaaaaa!" Freakachu leapt out toward the middle of the pool.

Lilja held her breath. "Freakachu! No, your tail!" Freakachu created a splash, soaking Lilja. Oddly enough, it's flame tail was still burning under the water. "How in the hell..." Then she remembered that Freakachu were also psychic, and it probably surrounded it's tail in a psyonic bubble to keep it from going out. Lika a plastic bag. 

"Vaporeon! Water gun!" The impact of the water gun pushed Freakachu to the edge of the pool. 

"Leech seed, Freakachu!" Freakachu leaped out of the pool and into the air, throwing a seed at Vaporeon which wrapped it up, and started draining it's energy.

Sita looked intrigued. "Break loose, and Ice Beam!" The vines around Vaporeon snapped, and it delivered a magnificent ice beam towards the multicolored chu. 

"Freakachu, watch out! Barrier and Flame Thrower!" Barrier reflected the icebeam from hitting Freakachu full force, but it could only take so much and shattered. Freakachu shot a blast of fire out of it's mouth at the hurtling ice chunk, melting it.

The gym leader seemed stumped as she thought of an attack that could work on Freakachu. "Headbutt!"

Vaporeon swam towards Freakachu at an incredible speed, and the poor rodent froze.

Lilja threw her arm up into the air and yelled. "THUNDERBOLT!"

"Freeeeakaaaaaa CHU!" The electricity of the thunderbolt traveled throughout the water in the pool and zapped the Vaporeon, leaving it unusable. Still in motion from the headbutt it was going to deliver, the crispy Vappy hit the side of the pool.

Sita's eyes widened, and she recalled Vaporeon. "That is one mighty mouse, I'll give you that. But even so, I'll send out a stronger pokemon." She tossed a pokeball into the water, and as it hit the bottom, another pokemon popped out.

"Clllloysterrrrrr!"

"A Cloyster, eh? Well Freakachu, go get it." Lilja pointed to the Cloyster. "Bodyslam it, Chu." It was a stupid move on both Lilja and Freakachu's part. Cloyster are all spikes, and when they use withdraw, nothing can hurt them easily.

Freakachu hit the Cloyster, and a pointy part of it's shell slamed into it's side. 

"Chuuuuuu!" It wimpered as it grabbed it's abdomen and slowly swam back to the edge of the pool, where it climbed out and crawled back over to the wall where the others were.

Lilja rushed over to the chu to make sure it was okay. It winced in pain, but nodded nonetheless.

"What pokemon to use, what one to use..." she looked down at her belt at the pokeballs that were there. There were only three, because her three Freakachu walked with her. Their rainbow pokeballs she kept in her bag. She had Quilava, but that would be no good. Her Ditto was worth a shot, but it would be like Ash using his Charizard. Xerox paid no attention to trainers, it was a rebel pokemon. But still, it was better than nothing. She also had her Farfetch'd, but would save that for later.

She tossed out the pokeball belonging to Xerox, and immediately, the Ditto was over by the wall lounging with the Freakachu.Only it had transformed into a Freakachu and from where she was standing, she couldn't tell which one was Xerox. 

"What is going on over there?" Sita pondered, as she waited.

Lilja laughed, embarrased. "Um, I seem to be having a little difficulty with my Ditto. I think I'll use something else instead." Throwing another pokeball, Farfetch'd appeared.

"Faaaaar!" It swung it's leek in the air, aiming for nothing.

For sure, the rest of the battle would be interesting.

* * *

Nyarthashi sat up in a tree just outside of a farm. Her stomach was growling terribly, she'd had nothing to eat for a while. The Miltank that were grazing looked tempting. Just a sip of milk, that's all she wanted. For now. She swung down out of the tree, and landed near one. The Miltank was startled, and shifted away. Nyarthy looked around for something to hold the milk. A milking stool and a bent pail sat a little ways away. She was near the bushes, but the pail was right out in the middle of the field. If she was to get it, she'd have to be careful not to be seen. Nyarthy dashed out as quick as lighting, grabbed the bucket and sprinted back to the Miltank who had gone back to chewing grass. After she had filled the pail halfway, Nyarthashi started back into the bushes.

"TAUROOOOOSSS!"

Her head snapped around to see what had caused the sound. An angry Tauros was charging towards her, infuriated by her contact with the Miltank. It had already broken a couple of fenceposts.

"Oh shit!" Nyarthy sat the pail down and stood perfectly still, "If the guy who owns the farm hears that his Tauros has mad cow disease, I'm pretty screwed!" 

The Tauros bore down on her and just as it was about to ram her, she stepped out of the way and grabbed it's horns in her hands. She pulled it to the ground and flipped it onto it's back. 

"Take that!" She hissed at it. Questioning whether or not to tie it up so it couldn't chase her again, she noticed that the pail of milk had spilled over. Nyarthy slapped her head in disgust. "Crap."

She pulled a rope from the fence and tied up the distressed bull pokemon. Wandering back over to the Miltank, she set the pail upright and proceded to refill the pail. With her sharp hearing, she should have heard the sound of feet on the dry grass. But as it was, she was too busy listening to the sound of that warm, delicous milk hitting the pail.

"What d'you think yer doing?" A gruff voice demanded.

Nyarthy stood up. "Um, I.." She was wondering whether or not to kill the guy, and raid his house for food, "I was milking your Miltank for you, heh heh."

The old man looked her over and noticed her ears. "Eh, what 'ave we got 'ere? Ain't you Giovanni's kitten?" He tugged on her tail.

Nyarthashi gasped. How did he know about Giovanni, and most of all, how did he know about her?! His pulling on her tail was annoying and her fist was itching. She wondered if she should scratch it on him. 

"Ya look 'ungry. Need some food, kitten?" He took her arm and led her towards the house. The guy would live, she decided. He seemed nice enough.

* * *

Lilja's battle wasn't going to great. The Cloyster that had impaled her Freakachu had also bashed Farfetch'd. 

"Clooooyster cloy ster st cloys!" (I'll take that onion of yours and ram it right down your throat!) It had said to the Farfetch'd after the fetch'd had told it to 'eat leek and die'. The Cloyster had used HydroPump on Farfetch'd as a final move, literally blowing it away.

Lilja grabbed a handfull of her hair. "Oooohhhh..." She snatched a Freakachu by the wall and pushed it to the edge of the pool. Promptly, the Freakachu gave the Cloyster the finger.

"Freaka!" It yelled, and without directions, or jumping in the pool, it used Thunderwave and paralyzed the Cloyster. It then used Vine Whip, knocking the shellfish out.

Sita fell back in her chair. "Whew, you fight tough. But you will soon see my next pokemon!" Her pokeball let loose an evolved version of Marril, Azumarril.

Azumarril sounded it's 'war cry' and sent a Watergun toward the Freakachu. The chu zapped the spray and instantly shocked Azumarril. Even though it was a little fried, it wasn't ready to give up and used Bubble on Freakachu. The chu dove in the water and swam towards Azumarril.

"Chu freaka!" (Idiot!)

"Azu zu marril?" (What did you call me?)

Freakachu doubleslapped Azumarril. "Fre chu chu freaka." (You heard me.)

Lilja looked confused. She wasn't giving Freakachu any orders, it was doing all that nasty stuff and dirty fighting all on its own.

Freakachu kept battering on Azumarril, with the blue guy fighting back as well. 

"CHUUUU chu fre chu freak!" (You are going DOWN!) Freakachu scratched Azumarril across it's face, it's blue bunny ears stiffened from the pain and it fell over so that it floated on it's back in the water.

Freakachu grinned, and swam back over to Lilja's side. She picked it up and held it in front of her face.

"What on earth has gotten into you? You are nasty!" Criticized Lilja.

"Chu." Right before Lilja's eyes, the Freakachu began to melt into a pink blob. "Diiiit!"

Lilja became dizzy. Was this actually Xerox, or was it her Freakachu transforming into a Ditto? That was the trouble of having both a Ditto and Freakachu. It must be Xerox, because none of her Freakachu were rude enough to give a poor Cloyster the finger.

Lilja sighed and collected her badge and three dollars from Sita. Oh well, at least she won.


	7. Secrets Exposed - Part 7 : Nyarthashi's ...

Secrets Exposed  
Part 7 : Nyarthashi's Past  
By Freakachu

The Rocket group tromped through another forest, this time miraculously they weren't lost. This forest led them to Aqua city, and they knew exactly where they were going. Well, Cletus and Zeke did, since they'd gone through before, so the others were following them. 

"This forest is scary!" James whined, and clung onto the nearest person, which happened to be Cletus.

Cletus slapped him away. "Ahh quit yer whinin'! T'ere ain't nothin' wrong wit' this here woods!"

"Yeah," Sergio cut in, "Except maybe for those webs and cocoons and stuff." Everyone looked to where he was pointing.

The women froze. "Eeep!" Cassidy squealed.

Zeke walked over to a rather large cocoon. "Wha's this?" He poked it with a stick, and a bone fell out. "EW!" Scraping at the cocoon with the stick soon revealed rotting clothing.

"Is that what I think it is?!" Vera yelled, waking up all the pokemon in the forest. A decaying body wore the dark ripped clothing, clothing that had a big red R on the shirt. Or what was left of the shirt.

Everyone looked wide-eyed at the corpse. "The missing Rocket member?" Jessie asked, her voice wavering.

Vera, Cletus, Sergio and Zeke all nodded, and Vera started to scream. Cassidy turned around and ran, soon followed by Jessie, then Vera. James also took off after them. 

"I don' see wha's so bad about this thin'." Cletus kicked it. "It ain't that scary!"

Zeke looked sick. "Don' touch it! Tha's just gross!" He turned and walked away, leaving Cletus to wonder over the poor Rocket who had obviously ran into a large Ariados.

* * *

Ash grinned halfheartedly as he admired his badge. Without knowing it, he was one step behind Lilja, or rather, not even one town behind her. He had also beaten Sita, five days after Lilja had.

Now he was on his way to Azure City. He hoped desperately to run into Lilja somewhere along the way, but so far he hadn't. He began to wonder if he ever would.

* * *

Nyarthashi stretched and looked up at the barn ceiling. The old man had let her stay for a while and they had talked. He used to be a Rocket member himself until he retired years ago. He was way before Giovanni, back when Giovanni's father ran TRHQ. He said she could sleep in the barn and stay as long as she wanted. And also to be careful, Team Rocket members were looking for her. How he knew this stuff, he never did say. Nyarthy figured she didn't have to be careful. It was Lilja who needed to be careful. She just hoped that the Rockets didn't find her before she did.

* * *

"Damnit!" Lilja muttered. She ws battling the Azure City gym leader who was no more than 9 years old. She had a bunch of bird pokemon that Lilja hadn't seen before. A Tigerio (black bird with orange tiger stripes), Icyfer (a fluffy ice bird) , Lavec (a fire type bird) , Technofla (a steel covered bird) , and a Phantover (a purple ghost bird). She also had a Zapdos, which her mother had found injured as a baby. Since the match was only a two on two, she used her Tigerio and Phantover. Both of them had beat out her Freakachu and Quilava, leaving her with no badge, and having to give up 5 bucks. The girl was pretty tough for her age. Lilja had thought she owned the gym and ran it herself, but her father sat on a chair and watched the battle. He was obviously the gym owner, even if he let his daughter play the leader. It had taken Lilja practically two whole weeks to get to Azure City from Aqua City, after being lost once again, for the thousandth time. She had her 12th birthday along the way there.

Skye, the gym leader came over to her after the match to get her money. "Sorry about that, but I try not to be easy to beat." Her dark blue hair swung by her waist. "But the person before you, beat me."

Lilja nodded. Of course, a small girl like that wasn't unbeatable. She left the gym, and started toward the next town which was quite another ways away.

After being on the road for about four days, and traveling along a dirt path which was mostly surrounded by trees, a rustling in the bushes stopped her. It was the middle of the night, and the only light was from the moon, and the three Freakachu tails. Lilja stepped back from a shrub that was doing a tremendous amount of wiggling. Her three Freakachu clung to each other.

A bunch of people with black Team Rocket suits jumped out. Two of them went for the Freakachu, and the other dozen went after her.

"We finally got you! Back to TRHQ you go with us!" One guy sneered, covering her mouth with a gloved hand to silence her, as some others tied her hands behind her back. 

Lilja kicked and squirmed, trying to get away from them, but there were too many, and they were too strong. Soon they were practically dragging her back the way she came from. She tried to bite the guy who held her mouth so she could scream, but the mans gloves were too thick. Yet, he released her mouth, and promptly slapped her across the face for trying to bite. The three Freakachu were all 'chuuuing' inside a fireproof bag with rubber on the outside. It was a thick bag, so they couldn't break out.

Pulling her a little farther, Lilja could see they were heading for a limo. Inside that limo were at least 5 more Rockets. The sides of the road were still cluttered by forest on each side. One of the guys walking along with them laughed at Lilja and put a blindfold on her, along with a gag. 

The man who put the blindfold on her obviously couldn't tie very well. The thing slipped down over her nose, so she could see.

A man stepped out of the limo. He was a big guy, with a dark suit on. He grinned evilly. This was Giovanni, no doubt about it, Lilja knew.

"Ahhh.. so you're the kid who owns the Freakachu. Pleased to meet you. Hmmm not much for words I see!" He pointed to her gag and broke out in a cackling laugh. 

Something masked by darkness swooped out of a nearby tree, knocking the laughing Giovanni to the ground. Immediatly the Rockets were ganging up on the thing, dropping Lilja, and the bag of Freakachu to the ground. Where she sat, her hands still behind her back, bound by the wrists. The black thing didn't seem much bigger than her. Maybe a year or two older. 

Whatever that was in black was getting the better of a dozen and a half Rocket members. If any came near, they were immediately down. The thing turned to finish Giovanni, but the bugger had jumped back in his limo, with the three remaining Rockets, and sped away into the night. Farther away, another vehicle could be heard revving away as well. 

The figure walked over to Lilja and helped her up, untieing the rope for her so she could pull the gag off.

"Thanks! Thanks a lot!" She exclaimed.

Person in black dusted themself off. "I'm glad I got here in time. Giovanni wanted to take you and the Freakachu to lab and use them for experiments, Lilja."

Lilja almost fell over backwards again. "How do you know my name, and about the Freakachu?" 

The dark stranger pulled off the hooded cape it wore. Alas, the person was no stranger.

"Nyarthashi?! I'm so glad to see you! But what are you doing here?" 

Nyarthashi shrugged. "I knew you were in trouble."

Looking even more confused, Lilja pulled the Freakachu out of the bag they were in and put them inside their pokeballs so something like what had happened wouldn't happen again. "How are you the same age as me? You were three years younger when I found you the first time."

"I'll explain when we get to Ebony City pokemon center."

"But I was heading to Mauve Town!"

"Ebony City is closer. After that, there's a shortcut from Ebony to Mauve. Just trust me."

Lilja nodded, and the two of them began walking again. This time in the direction of Ebony City.

* * *

The night after the Rockets attacked Lilja, Ash had battled Skye, the Azure City gym leader. Near the end of the match, both of them had only one pokemon left in a three on three battle. Ash had won with a lucky hit. A very lucky hit, or Skye would have beat him too.

Misty was complaining about how much her feet hurt after walking for a couple of measly days.

"I can't go another step!" She whined. "Ash, can we stop somewhere please?"

Ash shook his head. "We're going to Ebony City. We'll be there soon, I think. And no one said you had to come. You could have stayed back in Aqua City with Sita. You seemed to like being there so much."

"It reminded me of home! Besides, Sita had some really nice water pokemon, didn't she?" Misty practically drooled.

"Uhhh... yeah." Ash rolled his eyes. He continued walking, Misty sitting on the ground in the middle of the dirt road.

Misty jumped up. "Hey! Wait for me!" She hollered.

* * *

"Wha' the hell d' ya want?!" Zeke snapped into Vera's cellphone. The group had three phones among eight people. Vera's, Jessie's, and Cassidy's. They were all sitting in a fancy restaurant, waiting for their orders. Everyone was restless and agitated when they had first recieved a call from a fellow Rocket with a higher rank than them saying that they'd located the girl with theFreakachu and were going after her that night. It turned out that they were nowhere near where she was, so it was useless having them get her. Instead, they were to just gather pokemon for the boss. This had annoyed all of them to no end. All their hard work of looking for the brat didn't even pay off. One of the others had spotted her. She was hard to miss, with three rainbow rats following her. 

"So, wha' are we supposed ta do about tha'?" Zeke continued talking on the phone, while the others listened intently to his side of the conversation. "Yeah, well okay. G'bye." He hung up the phone. Their meals arrived and they all started eating, with their eyes still fixed on Zeke.

"Wha'd he want?! Wha'd he want?!" Cletus shook Zeke.

Zeke was starting to look sick. Cletus released him, sat back in his seat and poked at his food with his fork.

"It was one of th' other Rockets. **She** was jus' sayin' how th' kid escaped. Got help from that girl that was part meowth or somethin'. 'Member her? She broke loose from tha' lab in Viridian a few months ago. Anyway, th' meowth kid killed almos' all th' rockets that was sent to get tha other girl."

Cassidy stopped chewing with her fork halfway to her mouth, and Butch dropped his drink in his lap. Vera started choking, and Jessie dropped her fork and knife back onto her plate. Sergio's eyes widened in amazement, and James lost half of his dinner on the floor when his hand slipped and pushed the plate off the table. Cletus just gaped, his mouth hung open, revealing his food.

"Sh-she killed them all?!" Jessie stammered, while James proceeded to pick his food off the expensive carpet.

Zeke shook his head. "All but three. There was 18 of 'em, an' 15 was killed. Wit' 'er bare hands. No weaponry at all!"

Sergio pointed to James and let out a sound of surprise. "Is that why your parents kicked you out of the house? Kept throwing food on the floor?" He quipped.

"Ha ha. Very funny!" James replied sarcastically. "No."

Cassidy handed Butch a napkin to sop up his lap. "I guess they'll have to call out the military to deal with that cat-brat."

* * *

Stretching out on a couch type bench in the Ebony City Pokemon center, Lilja muttered, "So, you were going to explain stuff to me, Nyarthashi."

They had arrived in Ebony City during the night, and slept in the center. From what Lilja could tell, the whole city seemed so dark. Sure, there had been lights on like streetlights, and cars headlights, and lights on in windows, but still something seemed strange.

"Oh, right. But I don't need to explain anything. And besides, I can't." Nyarthashi replied, with her head hung down.

Lilja was getting impatient. "What do you mean you don't need to, and you can't? You have to know why you are the way you are, don't you?"

Nyarthashi pulled a disk from her pocket, and handed it to Lilja. "Even I don't know where I came from, or what I was before all this happened. I don't know if I was first a Meowth, or if I was first a human. I haven't had time to read what's on the disk. I swiped information of myself from one of the lab computers. We can read it now though."

They walked over to one of the PC's near the front desk and turned it on. The computer asked for a trainers licence number which Lilja promtly punched in. A menu came up. Lilja selected "Read from disk." A box opened showing the contents of the disk. There was only one file, and it was titled "Nyarthashi."

They skimmed through the large file, re-reading things, and reciting some things aloud. The document was like a diary, each entry dated. The beginning mentioned Prussian Labs, and how their pokemon gene splicing was partaly sucessful until the lab exploded. Giovanni, hearing of this, sent some of his men to Cinnabar to take over the lab secretly and begin the splicing process. He wanted them to create someone who would be fast, and deadly. 

"...unfortunatly, only a female child at the age of two could be obtained for the experiment..."

"...the Pokemon chosen to be spliced with the child was a stray meowth that came to the labs back door to dig for food in the trash. Although an older person would have been more ideal, a genetic formula of hormones will be injected into the subject, causing the aging process to excellerate..."

"...is doing extremely well, the pokemon signs are becoming apparent. It is clear now that the girl is indeed meowth. She has been named Nyarthashi..."

"...put in a tank to speed splicing process. The procedure is going smoothly..."

Nyarthashi didn't seem very surprised at much of this, and also uninterested.

"...child has disappeard. The whole lab has been searched and she is not here at all. She couldn't have gone far, after all, she's only three..."

Lilja noted the date and grinned. She pointed it out to Nyarthashi who looked to be pouting.

"Hey! Look, this is where I came in!" Lilja rambled excitedly. "Hey, you looked alot older than three then." Then she continued reading. The next entry was a whole year and a half after the previous one.

"...two of Giovanni's faithful team members has brought Nyarthashi to Viridian Lab, along with a rainbow mouse pokemon now known as Freakachu. Injections for Nyarthashi will begin today..."

Well no wonder Nyarthashi looked just as old as her now. When she was three, she looked five. Right now, Nyarthashi was only about five and a half, maybe six and looked to be 12. The age difference wasn't that great when she was younger, but every year that passes, she looks more and more older than her actual age. If that kept up, she'd be 20 and look 70.

Lilja read a bit farther and learned that when Nyarthashi is about the stature of a 18-20 year old, her body slows the aging process. In a year, she would only age as if it were a month. In twelve years, she would only look one year older. This stuff was interesting. Lilja went back to reading again.

"...rainbow rodent has escaped. Possibly back to it's trainer..."

"...been realized that the trainer of the Freakachu has six more of them. If they could be obtained from her, splicing could be done to create the ultimate..."

She looked up from the screen. No wonder they had gone after her. But why did they wait so long? Maybe they lost track of her until now. Lilja didn't have the original seven Freakachu anymore. She had her two Taichu, and a total of four remaining Freakachu. One had died while she was on her first pokemon jouney, another she had given to Arti as a gift, and the other she had let Bill keep. 

The rest of the document was very uninteresting and useless information. Nyarthashi had stopped reading long ago, and had gone back to sulk on the couch.

"What's wrong Nyarthy? Are you sick?" Lilja asked, turning around to her friend.

Nyarthy shook her head. "The information I wanted to know most, doesn't seem like it's going to be in there."

"What information? What did you want to know?"

"I just wanted to know who my family was."

Lilja nodded. She wished she knew her family too. Aside from her Uncle Blaine, she had none. Lilja scrolled to the bottom of the file, and was about to click it off, when something caught her eye.

"Nyarthy! Come quick! Right here, at the bottom of it all, it says who your father is!"


	8. Secrets Exposed - Part 8 : Reunion, or n...

Secrets Exposed  
Part 8 : Reunion, or not?  
By Freakachu

Ash and Misty had arrived in Ebony City the same night Lilja had, and booked two hotel rooms. Both Ash and Misty's reaction to Ebony City had been marvelous. The city was so big, and every building was a tall black structure. It looked as if the whole place was made out of ebony. The sight was breathtaking. Streetlights and neon signs reflected off of the smooth dark towers making it seem like they were in a world of mirrors. As Ash dozed off to sleep that night, he wished Lilja had been there with him when he had first entered the city. The darkness was so intense and beautiful. He missed her terribly, but wondered if he didn't deserve the separation by letting Misty kiss him.

* * *

"My father?! Who is my father?!" Nyarthashi jumped up instantly, and her eyes scanned the computer screen in front of her. She let out a gasp. The surprise was shocking. Her father was someone she knew, not a stranger as she had thought. "Oh my god, oh my god... if only I had known before!"

Lilja looked at Nyarthashi. "If you had known before, then you wouldn't be here with me now. You wouldn't have saved me, and I would be locked away somewhere, as a test result."

Nyarthashi's eyes turned cold. "NO! No I wouldn't! I'm eternally grateful to you for letting me see the world outside of the lab! Even if I did know who my father was before, that wouldn't have stopped me from being a friend to you!"

"You say that now, but if you had known before, I'm almost sure you would be just like your father, and would not have run away from the lab." Lilja replied softly.

"Damnit! Life is so unfair! Especially mine! I'm not like normal people, I was changed! TO SERVE THE PERSON NONE OTHER THAN MY FATHER, GIOVANNI!" She broke down and wept. "Even if he is my father, I still hate him for what he did to me!"

Her head hung down, and filled with sadness for her best friend, Lilja tried to comfort Nyarthashi. "Maybe we can find out who your mother is."

Nyarthy shook her head. "Not we, me. You have badges to earn, places to go. And a life to live. I'll go straight to TRHQ and find out myself. If I get caught, I don't care. I can defend myself, and if not, then at least I'll have died trying."

"Don't talk like that! I know you'll succeed, and I know you'll be fine! Just remember to find me afterwards and tell me who, because I want to know as much as you, and I want you to be happy."

"Well, okay. I'll come back for you. When I'm sure there's no danger."

Lilja hugged Nyarthy. "Don't leave just yet. Let's spend a while in this city and have some fun. We can go shopping, and you can watch me battle for my badge."

A smile slowly appeared on the young meowth-girls face. "Sure, why not?"

* * *

Giovanni walked into the lab section of TRHQ in Viridian. A place he rarely went, because he thought of his workers as if they were below him. Everyone in the lab rushed to one side to keep out of his way. Giovanni was not a good man to displease. Especially in the mood he looked like he was in.

One of the younger scientists was busy reading a file as she walked, and didn't see the towering man about to run over her. Giovanni collided with her, knocking her to the floor. Her eyes widened in surprise, and then to fear.

"I'm really sorry Giovanni, honestly! It was all my fault really!" She apologized frantically as she picked her glasses and papers up, and then stood. Most of the other workers watched in fascination.

"Heh. Phoebe's going to get it now. The boss looks angry." One guy whispered to another.

The other guy shrugged. "Giovanni was mad before he came in. Phoebe just made it worse."

There were more whisperings among the workers. 

Giovanni stared long and hard at Phoebe for a minute, then turned his attention to the rest of the group. "I want you all to listen up! Rumors have been going around that the child and her pokemon we were after have gotten away. This is fact, not fiction." He picked up a clay model of the meowth DNA code and crushed it in his hand. "It was Nyarthashi who made her escape possible. I want you to start on another hybrid, but this time, use an older subject. I don't have an eternity to wait." He turned to leave, and then stopped. "And one more thing. Make sure this one is loyal. I don't want any more dangerous creatures running loose and killing an arsenal of my men. Understood?" With that, he left the room and slammed the door behind him so hard the windows rattled.

There was a buzz of excitement in the lab. Another hybrid? The workers began chattering over what pokemon would be best to use.

Phoebe, the woman who Giovanni had knocked down, sunk to the floor once again and began sobbing. Another woman came up to her, and hugged her, while the rest of the workers returned to what they had been doing before.

"It's okay Phoebe."

Phoebe shook her head. "No it isn't. Why must he be so cold now, Mavelle?"

"He was always a cold man. You of all people should know." Mavelle answered softly. "I know you're worrying, but everything will work out."

"Do you mean that?"

Mavelle helped Phoebe off the floor. "I promise it will work out."

Phoebe hugged her. "Thank you, I know you understand."

"Hey, what are sisters for? Lets join the rest of the group now. Somewhere we have to get a subject to make another hybrid."

* * *

A week after they had been informed of Giovanni's failure in catching the Freakachu, the four rookie members and the four intermediate members of the Rocket gang were travelling the towns in search of rare pokemon. Cletus had managed to swipe a Venusaur, Centerity, Magneton and a Gyarados. Zeke, a Victreebel (which was better behaved than James's), Araidos, and Jolteon. Vera had stolen an Elekid, Slowking, Nidorino, Annon, Bayleef, Dewgong, and Kingler. Sergio had thieved another Chansey (which he was keeping for himself), a Clefable, Pikachu (that Jessie and James had a fit over), Wigglytuff, and a Growlithe. Butch and Cassidy together had stolen a Dunsparce, Crobat, Hitmonlee, and a Feraligatr. Jessie and James (who had just started to get the hang of this) had gotten an amazing total of two pokemon. A metapod (because it's trainer was giving it away) and a Rapidash (from a farm, which James had fell out of a tree onto the poor thing). They had called Giovanni, and he had immediately ordered them back to the Viridian branch of TRHQ.They were confused as to why, Giovanni didn't elaborate. So they took off back for Viridian.

* * *

Lilja sat in the Mauve Town Pokemon Center and looked at the little pocket photo of her and Nyarthashi. It had been Nyarthy's idea to go in the photo booth. She had beat Rhea, the Ebony City gym leader. Rhea was only eleven, but was a tough challenge none the less. Rhea had evil type pokemon, and had almost beat her, but Lilja earned the DevilHorn badge anyway. Now, a month after Nyarthashi had left, and two days after Lilja had arrived in Mauve Town, she was getting ready to challenge Luna, the Mauve Town gym leader. Whenever Lilja felt sad, she gazed at the crazy picture of Nyarthy with her tongue hanging out, and her ears pulled down and herself grinning like mad. Lilja put the silly photo back in her pocket, and started the half hour run to the gym.

* * *

Ash too, had defeated Rhea and gotten the badge. Now he was in Mauve Town, and had entered the gym in good spirits. Until he saw the gym leader. She looked so much like Lilja that he thought for a minute that it was her. The only difference was that Luna had violet hair, and Lilja had dark red. Luna was the same age as Lilja would be, and about the same height. Ash blinked.   
  
_'It could be her,'_ He thought, _'She could have dyed her hair.' _The resemblance was uncanny. It was either a major coincidence, or it was her.

"Do you challenge me to a match?" Luna asked. 

"Yeah, I do!" If it was really Lilja, she didn't' recognize him.

Luna tilted her head to one side innocently. "You're kind of cute. What do you want to bet on the match?"

Ash thought for a minute. He didn't have much money left, and he didn't want to start wagering his pokemon. He shrugged.

"Hmm.. well how about this. If I win, will you go out with me tonight, for supper?" she asked. Misty slightly moved her head back and forth in a 'no' motion. Ash glanced at Misty and blinked, then turned back to Luna. 

"Well, okay. If you want." He replied, slowly. 

Misty started to turn purple. _'Why does he say yes to every girl asking him out except me?!' _That was an exaggeration. Luna was the first girl who had actually asked him out to dinner. And Ash obviously wasn't really interested in anyone, but tried to remain polite. Also, Misty hadn't came right out and asked him. She had hinted, but he didn't seem to get the clue. She knew the only reason he started in the Rainbow League instead of the Indigo League was just so he might meet up with that girl Lilja again. 

* * *

Lilja was almost to the gym when it started to rain terribly hard. She pulled the hood of her jacket up over her head and ran even faster. Finally she found herself under a balcony roof. The gym's balcony to be exact. Lilja was about to open the door, when it did so itself, and two figures came out. The second one bumped into her.

"I'm sorry!" A boys voice apologized. Lilja couldn't understand why his voice was so familiar. she looked up, but couldn't see a thing with the rain on her face.

"It's okay," She replied blindly, and grasped the door.

"I can't believe you lost. Now you have to go on a date with her." The other person was saying, the female voice fading as Lilja entered the gym, and the other two kids walked away.

"Another challenger? Well it certainly has been a busy day. It doesn't really matter, you're my last match tonight. We better make it a short one." The gym leader called as she saw Lilja enter.

By the end of the three on three battle, it was clear that Lilja had beat Luna's electric Pokémon with her Freakachu, a Sandslash she had caught on the way, and a Dugtrio.

Luna smirked. "Well I guess you won. It doesn't matter anyhow, I'm not upset. I'm going out to dinner with the guy I just beat before you."

Lilja nodded vaguely. The boy who she had ran into? His voice had sounded so familiar, Lilja could have sworn she knew him. 

* * *

Back at TRHQ labs, the workers had succeeded in finding a worthy subject. One of the younger members of the team, who was only 15. He had seemed excited when they told him about it, but not even halfway through the transformation he had started screaming something horrible. The scientists really had no idea whether or not the process was painful, Nyarthashi hadn't cried out. They boy was probably scared. His name was Draigh, meaning Dragon, and they thought it only appropriate that he should be part of some dragon type pokemon. The lead scientist had chose Dragonite, because it was large and strong. 

"When this boy is finished, we'll have a killing machine! Not only is Draigh a feisty one, but he'll be much stronger now. A week of injections should get him tough enough to stop Nyarthashi and trap that girl and her Freakachu!"

* * *

"You've done a fine job, but I'm no longer in need of Rockets such as yourself. I'm laying you off."

The group of eight in front of Giovanni's desk gasped. 

"Don't need us anymore?" James whined.

Giovanni ignored James and swiveled around in his chair, dismissing them. Cletus wasn't one for manners, so he piped up.

"Boss, just why're ya sendin' us away? We hain't done nothin' wrong as far as I know. We even brought ya all them be-uti-ful pokemon."

The chair swung around again, and Giovanni faced them once more. "We're making another hybrid to bring Nyarthashi back, and to get the girl and her Freakachu. The best Rocket members can do the job of stealing pokemon. Although you did manage to bring in some, I'm not running the risk of keeping on a whole bunch of members for no reason. The less, the better, at this point. So go. Your pay off is deposited in your accounts. Do whatever. Now, I have a lot of things to do. Paperwork, and dismissing other members." He waved them away, and they shuffled out of his office, and out of the building.

"We are..." Jessie started.

"Out of work." James finished, stammering. "It's bad enough that Meowth had left, now we don't even belong to Team Rocket anymore!" He clutched at Jessie, where they sat bawling.

"I be guessin' we're just normal everyday folks now, eh?" Zeke replied.

Vera and Sergio just stood there and blinked. The initial shock had rendered both them and Cletus practically comatose.

"Well, I'm going shopping." snorted Cassidy. "The boss did say that our payoff is in the bank."

"Shopping?!" Butch jumped back. "At a time like this? And anyway, don't you already have a million pairs of shoes and handbags? Not to mention clothes an-" He was cut off in mid sentence by Zeke, who clamped a hand over Butch's mouth.

"Ya keep him quiet! Can't stan' ta hear his voice!" hollered Zeke, to Cassidy.

Vera shrugged. If this was going to turn into a group shopping expedition, she was all for it.

* * *

Poking at his dinner with his fork, Ash started down at his plate. It was still raining horrible, and as much as he wanted to call Luna and cancel the date, he somehow couldn't. He wanted to tell her that he loved someone else, but hadn't been able to bring himself to say it. It was probably just a casual dinner anyway. Luna was nice to him, but her character was so radically different than Lilja's, or even Misty's for that matter. She was so confident and smooth talking, it seemed she could walk right into a large corporation and be able to persuade the boss into handing the company over to her. She wasn't exactly a seductress, but she had the same quality needed to be one. 

Most of the meal had been silent, except for a few occasional words. Luna didn't look uncomfortable from the quiet at all, but finally she spoke up.

"Are you alright? You've hardly said two words the whole time. Let me guess, you have an old flame."

Ash looked up at her. "Old flame?"

Luna nodded, spearing a lettuce leaf with her fork. "Yeah, you know, an old girlfriend. Or even a steady one."

"Well, not exactly but-"

"Aha! I thought it might be something like that! The orange haired girl that was with you, right?"

Shaking his head, Ash was about to speak again, but was once more interrupted by Luna.

"Can you tell me what happened? I'll understand if it's none of my business." She pushed.

"No, it's alright. I'll tell you if you want. When I was competing for badges for the Indigo Pokemon League, I went to Cinnabar Island to get my Volcano Badge. While I was there, I met a girl who was a couple months younger than me. She came with me, Misty and our friend Brock so she could watch me in the Indigo Pokemon League. We had become close friends."

Luna sat, her eyes fixed on his face. "Go on,"

* * *

Hunger. Lilja was hungry, and thought about nothing at that moment but a plate of hot food. The small restaurant across the street looked warm and inviting. It would be a great change from this driving cold rain, chilling her to the bone. It rained a lot in the spring. She crossed the street, cars stopping, and sending sprays of water around them, and walked over to the cozy looking restaurant.

* * *

"We were on our way back to my home in Pallet Town from a friends house. It had become clear that Misty and her didn't get along to well. I couldn't figure out why, but Brock said that they were probably in competition somehow. One night the two were arguing and she ended up going over the side of a cliff."

"Oh, I'm sorry. She died before you could tell her how you felt?"

Ash shook his head again. "No, it wasn't that. She's still alive. Somewhere."

"Somewhere?" Luna asked.

"Yeah. I jumped after her, and almost killed myself, along with her. But we made it back. She told me she loved me, and I almost cried because I didn't think so. Afterwards, Brock had helped us back to where we set up camp. After Brock went to sleep that night, Misty tried to warm up to me, and kissed me."

"Really? Wow."

"It wasn't wow. Lilja seen her do it, and after we were all asleep, she disappeared. She didn't leave a note, or if she did, it blew away. I never did compete in the Indigo League. I came over to the Rainbow League to look for her because thats where her uncle said she had gone. You look a lot like her. The first time I saw you, I thought you were her."

* * *

Walking up to the window of the restaurant, Lilja peered it. The longer she stood outside, the more inviting it looked. Everyone in there seemed to be having a great time, and the food looked delicious. She caught a glimpse of familiar purple hair and recognized Luna's face. She was with a boy who was back to her. Luna seemed to be silent, whereas the boy looked to be talking, moving his hands every now and then. 

* * *

Luna suddenly perked up. "Did you say Lilja?"

Ash blinked. "Yeah, why?"

"You know, it might be coincidence, or plain luck, but there was a girl who I battled not even five minutes after you. Her name was Lilja."

His eyes widened. "What did she look like?"

Luna seemed to be in thought for a second. "Well, she was about as tall as me. And she had long hair. Hey, that girl standing in the window there, that's her!"

Ash turned around and looked in the direction Luna was pointing. Standing outside in the downpour was the girl he had been searching for, and had been for over a year. 

* * *

When the boy had turned to look in her direction, Lilja knew at once who it was. He was Ash, the person she had been hoping to run into! But what was this? He was having a romantic dinner with the gym leader? She felt as if someone had tied a huge bag of sand to her and made her drag it here from home. She blinked back tears. 

_'He doesn't just like Misty then. She's nowhere to be seen. Fine then, Ash, have fun with your harem!'_

* * *

He jumped up and ran towards the door, opening it and stepping outside. Lilja turned and ran, down the street, and into the wet darkness. But not before Ash seen the expression on her face. It was a mixture of surprise, and hurt. But mostly hurt. He called her name and ran after her. Running for a few blocks, he finally collapsed onto his knees in the rain. It was no good, she was gone. 

_'What does she think of me now?' _He thought, _'She left because she probably thought I'd rather have Misty than her, and now I'm having dinner with someone else. To her, I'm probably just some guy like Brock who goes after every girl in sight!' _He made his way back to the restaraunt, where Luna was standing outside underneath a lemon yellow umbrella with black lightning bolts on it.

"Hey, I paid." She said softly. "So don't worry about anything. I was wrong to go after you, and I admit that's what I was doing. Why did she run?"

Ash slowly shook his head. "She hates me now, I bet."

Luna put her hand on his shoulder. "I'm sure she doesn't hate you, Ash. But remember, there's still that other girl. Misty. She's probably waiting for you back at the pokemon center."

"But she's just my friend. There's no romantic anything between us."

She shrugged. "I'll I can say is, go after Lilja. Good luck in finding her. But if it for some reason doesn't work out, then take Misty. I can tell she likes you a lot."

"No..." Ash choked out, his voice raspy from calling Lilja's name. "I don't love Misty."

Luna nodded. "I know. Well, I better get back. It was a nice dinner, and nice meeting you." She smiled slightly as she too disappeared into the night.

As slow as possible, Ash started back to the Pokemon Center where Misty probably was waiting for him. 


	9. Secrets Exposed - Part 9 : Lilja's New C...

Secrets Exposed  
Part 9 : Lilja's New Companion  
By Freakachu

Giovanni stared down at the young boy before him. Draigh had been one of the top Rockets, despite his young age. Now he was given the chance to become more. 

"I assume you know what your task is?" 

Draigh nodded, and bowed. His once dark brown hair was now the same shade as the inside of Dragonites wings, as a result of the splicing. What worried Giovanni the most was if Draigh would stay loyal. He had no doubts that he could take care of Nyarthashi, but there was a nagging thought in the back of his mind that wouldn't leave him alone.

Clearing his throat, Giovanni dismissed Draigh. "Remember, bring her back alive. And if for some reason you cannot, then do away with her. We cannot have her ruining anything. As for the Freakachu, we want their trainer as well."

The half-Dragonite boy turned and left the room. Stopping in the arsenal room, he selected a handgun, which he didn't think he'd have to use, and a knife, that he strapped into his boot. He figured he could take her by hand if he had to.

After reaching the top of the building, he spread his wings and leapt into the air, destinatinon, Nyarthashi.

* * *

Upon arrival at Ivory City, Lilja had been as awestruck as she was in Ebony City. While Ebony City had wowed her with it's dark beauty, Ivory City was so white, and clean. Everything dazzled her, especially the tall buildings. The structures in Ebony had been large, but they weren't as big as the ones in Ivory. Lilja had waged battle on the gym leader Roscoe, who used Psychic and Ghost type pokemon. He had been the second gym leader she had lost to, the first being Skye. Roscoe was the younger brother of Bill. He looked alot like Bill, except Roscoe was blonde, and only 16.

Having seven official gyms, the Rainbow league qualifications is at least five badges. Lilja owned only three of those badges. With only two gyms remaining, Lilja had to absolutely, positively, get both of the final badges or no league compititions for her. Which is why she was now on her way to Tangerine Island. The map she had gotten from the Pokémon center in Ivory City told her she had a long way to go. She concidered teleporting as far as she could, but she didn't know the terrain any better than the map could tell her.

About a days walk from Ivory City, Lilja came across a very tiny town. It wasn't even big enough for a pokemon center, and the only store was practically a small shack. It was almost dusk, and she didn't need to stop, since the town didn't seem like it could afford to have even a small motel. What caught her eye was a building just outside of the town. It was very old, and it was about three stories high. When she reached the building, Lilja saw that it had no doors, just a stairway in the back to get to the very top of the building. Upon reaching the top, she sat down on the flat roof, a waist high white railing around the edge.

"Don't know why I bothered to come this far." Lilja whispered into the darkness. She laid back on the roof and watched the stars come out. Remembering almost three years ago when she first met Ash, she suddenly became sad again. She didn't really care for him as much then, they were just friends. After a few months of tagging along with the group, she began to feel attatched.

Lilja stood and leaned over the railing to look at the ground.

"I told you I loved you..." She closed her eyes as a tear slid down her cheek, "...and you didn't seem to care."

She climbed up onto the tottery old railing and swayed back and forth. A light came down the road, and the engine of a motorcycle could be heard. The bike stopped a few yards away, and the driver jumped off.

"Hey! What you doing up there?" The light from the person's motorcycle were still on, and from the glow, Lilja could tell the person was male.

Lilja put her arms out for balance. "Nothing." Although she was trying to act calm, she was trembling like a leaf.

The guy scratched his head. "That doesn't look like nothing. Maybe you should come down. That building doesn't look very safe."

Nodding vigorously, Lilja leaned down to jump back onto the roof. The railing on which she was balanced snapped, and sent her hurtling towards the ground.

* * *

Nyarthashi slipped into the quiet stillness of TRHQ. Being the middle of the night, there was hardly anyone around. She decided to go straight to Giovanni's office to see if it held any information on who her mother was, and where in the world she lived (if she still lived). Making it to the office door without incident, she tried the knob, but realized it was locked.

_"Obviously he's not in there. This is a good thing."_ With one swift movement, she pulled the doorknob right out of the door, lock and all. Nyarthashi had never been inside Giovanni's office, and she let out a sound of approval. The room was so neat, you wouldn't be able to hide a paperclip. Everything had a place, and everything was in that place. It was a large, modern room. Leather chairs, and a glass desk, most everything was glass and the room itself was white. Although it was completely dark, she could see almost perfectly.

The young cat-child went straight to the filing cabinet, and broke in. There was lots of useful stuff in there, but nothing she could benifit from.

_"Unless I take these secret formulas for pokemon items like Rocket Industries brand potion and sell it to Silph." _She dismissed the idea immediately. She wasn't here to get rich, she was here to find family. After much searching, she found a file way in the back. It was labeled with her name on it, and for a moment, Nyarthashi thought she had scored. Upon opening the folder, she saw it was completely empty. She banged her head into the filing cabinet in disgust, and turned to leave.

A very massive, dark man, made even more dark with lack of light stood in the doorway.

"Well Nyarthashi, seems you decided to come back on your own."

* * *

Still being only a few days behind Lilja, Ash and Misty were on their way to Ivory City. If Ash won the battle against Roscoe he would only be needing one more badge. He decided that if he won, he would go to straight to Spectrum City to get his final badge. If he missed the badge from Ivory City, he could always go to Tangerine Island. A few problems persisted. To get to Spectrum City, both him and Misty had to get over the Magenta Mountains. The second problem was, Pikachu was sick. The last battle Ash had fought, Pikachu had been poisoned, and if they didn't reach Ivory City soon, Pikachu might not make it.

* * *

The guy rushed forward after seeing Lilja slip from the top of the structure. He dove, and caught her while landing on his knees. It was then that Lilja could see that the person wasn't a full-grown man like she had thought, but rather a boy not much older than herself.

"Do you usually go around catching people when they fall off of things?" Lilja muttered sarcastically.

The boy nodded his head. "Sure, you're the fifth one today." He grinned, and put her on her feet.

Lilja made a face. "You aren't serious."

"Of course not! So, you going someplace?" He asked her.

"On my way to Tangerine Island."

The boy picked his motorcycle helmet up from the ground. "Need a ride?"

Backing up, Lilja coughed. "I don't know you."

"Oh, well fine then. My name is Kohji Hakumi," He mock bowed. "and you are?"

Lilja blinked. Kohji's personality was very outgoing it seemed. "Lilja." She replied.

"You have a last name?"

"Yeah, but it doesn't matter,does it?"

Kohji shrugged, although it was hard to tell in the dark. "Not really. Now that we know each other, I'll take you where you're going." He tugged on her jacket sleeve and motioned toward his bike. "I can be your personal chauffeur."

* * *

Nyarthashi took a step back from the towering man in front of her.

"My dear Nyarthashi, did you think you could outwit me?" He replied to her silence.

She crossed her arms in front of her chest. "I figured I could attempt it."

Giovanni snorted. "You are an insolent child." He walked into the room and snapped on a light switch with such a tremendous force, it seemed as if he'd rip it off the wall.

"I take after my father."

"You don't even know who your father is." 

Nyarthashi shrugged. "Sure I do, and you might know him. He's tall. With short dark hair. And he always wears suits. Orange ones." She paused. "You know anyone with that description?"

Giovanni remained silent.

"Oh! I almost forgot," Nyarthashi continued, pacing around the room, "he owns a company called Rocket Industries, which also happens to be performing illegal activities lately."

With that, Giovanni let out a small cough, as if he were clearing his throat. "Why are you here?"

"I wanna find out who my mother is."

"If I tell you, you must stay and work for us." Giovanni replied.

Nyarthashi blinked. "Fine." She lied.

Giovanni went to his desk and pulled out a stack of papers. Nyarthy slapped her forehead. The desk! Why didn't she think of that? In moments of tension, one tends to forget the most obvious things. He dropped the documents on the desk in front of her. Quickly, she skimmed the first page. It was exactly the same notes that she had read on the computer disk with Lilja. Disgusted, she pushed all the papers aside except for a few bottom ones. One of the pages was the final page that had been on the disk, and then there were a few more after that. As she read, her eyes grew even larger than they were naturally, and she dropped the paper.

"How come these last pages weren't on the computers in the lab?" Nyarthashi flared.

"Because I wrote them afterwards." Giovanni was stern.

Nyarthashi rose to her feet. "You mean, you were the only one who knew who my mother was and where she lived?"

"That is correct."

"Where is she now?"

"None of your concern. You are for Team Rocket purposes only. You have no need to know this woman who you wish to call your mother."

Suddenly, Nyarthashi felt a burning anger inside. "TELL ME WHERE MY MOTHER IS!" She grabbed his arm. "Tell me, or I will destroy this building, and you know I can!"

Nyarthy expected Giovanni to show fear, but instead he chuckled. "I have no worry in that, you will be taken care of if you do not wish to participate. We have created another hybrid to do my bidding, and he had proved to be twice your strength. Kill me if you must. Draigh will get you in the end."

For a second, Nyarthashi just stared at him. Then she hauled her arm back with her fingers and nails pointed straight at him. Still, Giovanni showed no fear, and still, Nyarthashi hesitated.

_"I've killed many in the past, so why can't I kill him?! Surely he's the one who enrages me the most! I can't bring myself to kill my own father."_

She released his arm, and ran out of the room, down the hall, and out the building. Running away from the pain she felt. Running anywhere she ended up, but mostly, running to where she hoped she would find her mother.

* * *

"Pikachu...." Ash looked down to the small yellow mouse in his arms. "You'll be okay , I promise." Ash and Misty had made it to the Ivory City pokemon center, but the waiting room was full, and there were seven other people in front of them who all needed treatment. Two Nurse Joy's were busier than Ash had ever seen them, trying to help as many patients as possible. 

"Ash Ketchum and Pikachu?" One of the nurses addressed them as she approached.

Ash nodded, and Misty looked worried. Nurse Joy took Pikachu from Ash. "Don't worry, we'll help your Pikachu." She said softly as she turned and walked away briskly.

Misty looked at Ash and sighed. "Nothing to do but wait then." She muttered, and leaned back in the chair.

* * *

Kohji poked Lilja in the arm while she slept, half hanging off the couch at a pokemon center, in some small town.

"Hey, do you sleep like this all the time?" He grinned, as he kept poking her in hopes to wake her up.

Lilja flopped over onto her stomach and muttered something, narrowly missing a fall to the floor. After a few seconds, her eyes fluttered open, and she sat up. Kohji was watching her, with his deep teal green eyes. She blinked a couple of times and looked surprised.

Looking offended, Kohji replied to her stunned silence. "What, you don't remember me?"

"Huh?" Remember him? She hadn't even met him before!

"From last night, silly!"

"Oh, yeah." She remembered that she HAD met him the night before. It had been dark, and she didn't see much of what he looked like. Now that she saw him though, she realized he was younger than she originally thought. Lilja had guessed him to be about seventeen, but really looked younger. "Kohji, right?"

He smiled. "Yep. And you're Lilja."

Lilja nodded. She looked him over, and noted his hair. It was a reddish brown like hers, only a few shades darker and was tied in a mid-back length ponytail. "So, where are you from?"

Kohji leaned back on the couch, and put his hands behind his head. "Spectrum City, and you're from? No, wait! Let me guess, Cinnabar right?"

Falling off the couch, Lilja lay on the floor twitching. "How on earth did you know?!" She glanced up at him, still sitting in the same position looking at the ceiling. Then there was that grin again, only this one was quite sheepish.

"Weeeell, I'm just psychic I guess." Kohji grinned, still more sheepishly.

To be continued...


	10. Secrets Exposed - Part 10 : Mother

Secrets Exposed  
Part 10 : Mother  
By Freakachu

A cell phone ringing broke the early morning silence where a young boy slept, cozy in a warm tent. The half dragonite boy turned over onto his back and checked his watch, grasping the phone at the same time.

"It's eight in the friggin' morning," He muttered, still half asleep, "what do you want?"

"Don't take that tone with me." The voice on the other end snapped.

Draigh sat up abruptly, exposing himself to the coldness of the air. "Giovanni?! Oh, I'm immensly sorry, I thought you were someone else!"

"Yes, well, you don't seem to be doing your job."

"M-my job? I can't find the bitch, I've looked all over the place! Do you know where I am now? A few days walk from Ebony!"

"You're obviously not in the right location then. Nyarthashi was just here, in TRHQ last night. YOU are supposed to apprehend her." He bellowed. "Get yourself here now!" With that, the phone went dead.

Draigh looked at the phone and blinked. "Phhbbbbtt. I'm going back to sleep." He yawned, as he crawled back under his warm blanket and closed his eyes. "I'll go when I'm good and ready." Draigh obviously wasn't worried about what Giovanni would have said to him if he had heard what Draigh had just said. Draigh just wasn't scared of Giovanni. He never had been, but with his new strength and Dragonite power, made him feel like he could destroy the world if he wanted. And yet, he didn't want to destroy anything. Before his transformation, he was a nasty guy. Draigh took on the chance to become stronger via Dragonite so he could be the most powerful Rocket in the world. Lately though, the thought of killing things made his stomach hurt. It didn't neccesarily make him sick, but it bothered him. Draigh worried he was becoming soft hearted for some reason.

* * *

Lilja and Kohji had taken off on Kohiji's motorcycle after eating breakfast in the Pokemon center. Lilja had never rode on one before, and she loved every minute of it. They rode for a while before they stopped at another small town that didn't even seem big enough to have a name, which was situated near a large mountain range.

"What are these mountains called?" Lilja asked Kohji when he had parked, and they were both standing outside another Pokemon center.

"They're the Magenta's. Oh, you know what? I haven't asked you how old you are yet. But I'm not going to, I'm going to guess. 12?"

Again, Lilja facefaulted. "How do you know this stuff? Have you been stalking me? I didn't know where YOU were from, and I don't know how old YOU are!" She replied heatedly, empasizing the "you" by pointing at him.

Kohji held up his hands in mock defense. "I'm 14. Actually, closer to 15. Come to think of it, we don't really know that much about each other."

"Well duh!" Lilja remarked. "We only known each other not even a day!"

Grinning again, Kohji motioned toward the Pokemon center door. "Let's go in, and we can talk properly. I'm interested to see what kind of pokemon you have, although something tells me you have some that are rare."

Lilja raised her eyebrows. "Stop that!" She complained, sticking out her tongue at him, and they both walked into the center.

Kohji went to one side of the PokeCenter where there was a small food bar, and a few tables. He grabbed two bowls of noodles, and tossed the lady some change while singing, "Thanks, Cafeteria Worker Jane!"

The lady at the food bar looked disgruntaled. Jane was obviously not her name, and Kohji just called her that because all the other "important" people's names started with J. Joy, Jenny, etc, he told Lilja.

Kohji rambled on about himself for a while, his hobbies, and other stuff..

"...and I live with my aunt. I'm not too fond of her either."

Lilja looked up at him. "You live with your aunt? Why?"

He laughed. "I wish I knew! No, seriously, she's the only living relative besides my cousin who happens to be her daughter."

"Same here, only I live with my Uncle. But I don't mind him. He's a good guy." She replied to him, and then told him about Blaine, and the gym, and about how things were back on Cinnabar. She told him about her first pokemon journey, but she did not mention the part about meeting Ash and then leaving the group, because it hurt too much. 

Kohji could hear something in Lilja's tone of voice. It must have told him something because for a moment, he was quiet "Well," He finally stated, "you seem depressed or upset or something. You want to have a pokemon match?"

Sighing, Lilja looked down at her feet. "Okay, I guess."

"Well, don't over-exert yourself over it." Kohji joked. "Come on, lets go outside."

* * *

Rapping on the lab door irritated the middle aged scientist who was trying to complete some paper work.

"What do you want?" He yelled at the noise. Still, the banging continued. "Go away!"

Suddenly, he heard a crunching noise, and then another as if someone had punched through the wall. He jumped up from his seat to investigate, and something flew out and grabbed him.

"Wh-who-what..." The scientist was panicked, and could barely get any words out. "Nyar-Nyarthashi? What are you d-doing here? Please don't hu-hurt me!"

Nyarthashi loosened her grip on the scientist, and let him go. "I'm not here to listen to you stammer. Please, I need to ask you the location of one of your workers."

Shaken, the scientist dropped to his knees and quivered. "Anything you want, just please, don't hurt me!"

* * *

"What are you doing, Zeke? What is that you have?" Cassidy asked.

Zeke held out a porcelain ornament shaped like a dove. "It's fer my ma. I miss her, I do. Gonna sen' her this."

The group of former Rocket members stood near the washrooms in a strip mall, in some small city between Aqua and Azure city. Each was showing off something they had bought with the pay-off they had recieved from Giovanni. Jessie had bought a couple of outfits that she claimed were the latest style. She said she had to pamper herself to keep her mind off of being fired. James bought a pokemon. He wasn't tricked into buying a Magikarp this time, what he picked out was his own Pikachu. "Ha, now I have Pikachu, and the boss does not!" He had laughed. Butch hadn't bought a single thing, nothing in the mall really interested him. Radio Shack was where Sergio had been, and bought himself a gameboy, along with Pokemon Pinball. "I always wanted to play this, but never had the time! Too busy stealing pokemon for the boss." Cassidy had bought a cosmetic case. A HUGE one with about five million shades of lipstick, and even more shades of eyeshadow. Vera didn't buy anything either, she preffered to save the money so she could get a house in Lavender Town. Cletus had bought a banjo, of all things. He said it was because his current one was "all ta bits an' pieces."

"You know what? I miss being part of Team Rocket!" James wailed into his Pikachu, as he hugged it. "I have nowhere else to go! I can't go back home, my parents'll force me to marry that wretched Jessibelle!"

Cletus was happy for some reason, and it wasn't just because he had a new "banjie". 

"What are you smiling for?" Jessie glared at Cletus. All the members of the group, except for Cletus, were upset in some way, they just weren't the same without Team Rocket. 

Cletus grinned. "I gets ta go home now!"

Everyone blinked. Vera's chansey hugged Sergio by the leg, and Sergio's chansey sent the other nasty glares.

"I gets ta go back home an' live wit' my ma an' pa again! They's mad at me because I joined Team Rocket, an' now that I don' anymore, I kin go back home an' stay there!"

Suddenly Sergio grabbed Cletus by the shirt. "Wait a second, you guys! Who needs Team Rocket? We're fine on our own!"

Vera put down the bags she was holding and put her hands on her hips. "What are you talking about? We're nothing without Team Rocket."

"Yeah, what she said!" James whined.

Sergio released Cletus. "Listen you guys! Lets start out own team! We can still steal Pokemon, and sell them, and other things! Come on. And Cletus, you can stay here with us and become part of the team. Are you guys in?" He stuck his hand into the center of the group.

"Weeell," drawled Vera, "sure." She put her hand on top of Sergio's, and was soon followed by James, then Zeke, Cassidy, then Butch, and Jessie.

"Cletus, are you in?" Sergio pursued. 

Cletus hugged his banjo. "I dunno, I wanna go live wit' my ma and pa agin." He looked up at the rest of the group, all giving him pittiful looks. "Aw, now don' look at me that way." They continued to pout. "Well darn it, I jus can' say no ta you guys." He finally agreed.

Sergio smiled. "That settles it, from now on, we're our own team! To hell with Giovanni and Team Rocket!"

* * *

Pikachu, still being unwell, had caused Ash more battle losses than he liked. Of course, Nurse Joy had healed Pikachu as best as she could, and even given Ash some medicine for Pikachu but it was still very weak. It wasn't in any contition to battle, and the poison had weakened it enough for it to catch pnemonia. The pokemon trainers around the mountains and near Spectrum City were very tough and competitive, and his Pidgeot and Wartortle were used often. Charizard still wouldn't obey him, and Ash had dumbly sent it out during times when he was desperate and hoping for a fluke. Most of the time though, Charizard was hurt in the process of disobeying. He had ran into a trainer from Tangerine Island, and both of them were engaged in battle because of Ash's stubborness. Pikachu couldn't battle, and the trainers mighty grass Pokemon had knocked out his Butterfree and Wartortle. Still hoping for Charizard to listen, Ash called it forth and ordered a Fire Blast. Charizard Fire Blasted, but not toward the opponent.

"Charizard!" Ash whined, black from head to toe. "Why don't you ever listen?"

The Island trainer's Venusaur was top notch, and even with the element weakness, it Vinewhipped and Solar Beamed it's trainer into another victory. Ash pouted, and fussed over Pikachu, while Misty stood there with Togepi and watched.

* * *

_"I'm losing it, running around here in the daytime. I must be insane!"_ This was but one of many thoughts that ran through Nyarthashi's head as she stood on the porch of a pretty blue house. On the other side of this door, she knew, would be the one she should be calling mother if she hadn't been taken away. Nyarthy took several deep breaths and tried to gather the courage to knock. She didn't know why she hesitated, she'd done things before that would have gotten her arrested. That is, if the police could ever catch her. Why was simply planning to knock on a door leave her nervous? _"I can't do this. What if she isn't happy to see me? What if she didn't want me to begin with?"_

Shaking her head, she turned, and leaned against the house beside the door. Somewhere inside the house a faint chime was heard.

"Shit, I leaned on the doorbell." Nyarthy cursed. She was about to turn and run away, but something stopped her. Curiosity. She hadn't come this far just to run away now. The sound of footsteps running towards the door became prominent, and a second later, it was flung open.

Standing in the doorway was a young child about six or seven with blonde hair that fell to her shoulders, and bright blue eyes. Nyarthashi instantly became worried. Was this the right house?

"Mommy!" The child called, turning around facing the indoors "someones here!" She then faced Nyarthashi again and looked her over. "Hello! What's your name?"

"Darling, it's not good to talk to strangers." An older female voice called, and then the owner of the voice appeared at the door. The woman was about an inch or two taller than Nyarthashi, with the same blonde hair as the child, and the same blue eyes except hers were framed by glasses. As soon as she saw Nyarthy, her eyes went wide, and she paled. 

"Y-you..." She pulled the girl close to her and was about to back into the house, but Nyarthashi held the door open.

"Please, I notice you recognise me. Is it true, Phoebe Woodrow, that you're my mother?" 

Phoebe looked scared. "You killed all those people. Please leave, I-Idont know if I can trust you." 

"No, wait, I wouldn't hurt you! Please let me in, I want to talk with you!"

Reluctantly, Phoebe let Nyarthashi into the house, and into a nicely furnished livingroom.

The little blonde girl was confused as to why her mother was so upset. "Mommy, who is she?" When Phoebe didn't answer, the girl went over to Nyarthy. "Hey, you have a meowthy tail!" She reached out and touched it. Nyarthashi looked down at the girl and smiled, and she seemed to notice Nyarthy's ears as well as her charm.

Nyarthashi nodded to Phoebe. "Are you really my mother?"

"Yes, and I suppose you know who your father is." she said to Nyarthy, who nodded again. "Your father had some crazy idea of making pokemon hybrids, and took you away from me to test his theory. I hated him for that!" She began weeping. "I didn't know if I would ever see you again, they wouldn't let me around you while you were in the lab. And then, when you went on the rampage and broke out, I became scared of you. I didn't know if you had turned mean." She took a few steps back and looked Nyarthashi over. "You've grown so much! You're alot bigger than you should be."

The small blonde girl had taken a great interest in Nyarthashi's tail, and was petting it. Phoebe picked her up. 

"Shay dear, do you know who this is?"

Shay shook her head. "No, that's why I asked you."

Nyarthashi had to grin. This kid was almost as cocky as she was.

Phoebe bit her lip. "She's your sister."

Nyarthy fell over. "I have a sister?!"

"My sister? I really have a big sister? That's cool!" Shay squealed with excitement and wriggled out of her mothers grip.

"Now you go play, I want to talk to her for a minute, okay?" Phoebe led Shay to a door, which when she opened proved to be a toy room. "Nyarthashi, would you like something to drink?"

"No, it's alright."

"I must tell you, "Phoebe mumbled in a low voice, "that you and Shay are twins, and your real name is Casey. But it's for the best if Shay thought of you as her older sister. It would be very difficult to explain how you look so much older than her if she was to know. Can I trust you not to tell her?"

"I won't say anything to her." Nyarthy vowed.

Suddenly Phoebe looked frightened again. "I can imagine Giovanni has most of his men looking for you. I'd ask you to stay here with Shay and me, but it would be risking both us and you as well. In fact, he is the only one who could have told you who I was, and so he'd be expecting you to be coming here sometime."

Nyarthashi wasn't surprised that Giovanni didn't live with Phoebe. After actually meeting the man a few years back, she had come to the conclusion that nobody would want to live with him. He wasn't a pleasant man, and the only dedication he had was to his corporation. "You aren't married to him are you?"

"Heavens no. It was really just a...a one time thing. I just happened to be one of his many lovers at the time, although I didn't know it. It was stupid, really. If I had known he was a player and used women like that, I'd never have gotten involved with him." Phoebe replied bitterly. "Anyway, you better go now."

Nyarthashi stood up. "Yeah, thanks for letting me in. I appreciate you tellng me all this stuff." She nodded to Phoebe again, and exited out the door. She was halfway down the block, when someone called "heeeere kitty, kitty, kitty!" and Nyarthy assumed it was intended for her. She looked around frantically for the source of the sarcasm and noticed someone sitting on the roof of a nearby house. It looked like a boy, but he had wings.

"I guess I found you at last."

* * *

Kohji and Lilja's battle couldn't very well be classified as an even match. For one, Lilja wasn't too enthused in the fight, and didn't really try to hard. Another reason was that Kohji's pokemon handling was excellent, and only one of his pokemon had taken down all six of hers. He had been inpressed by her Freakachu, Taichu and Liquiot, and asked her where she had gotten such amazing pokemon. She told him how the Freakachu and Taichu were sort of an accident, and Liquiot she had found.

"If any pokemon are amazing, yours are. I haven't been beat this bad ever before." Lilja told him, and meaning it.

Kohji laughed. "Well, to become a good trainer, you have to battle often, and get to know your pokemon. I guess I spend alot of time with mine. Seeing as how it's November, it could start snowing soon. The Rainbow League competitions aren't until May, that's about six months. Gives both of us lots of time to train for it."

Lilja stooped to pick up one of her Freakachu. "You're competing in the league too?"

"Sure, why not?"

"Well, are you collecting badges?"

Amused with her, Kohji shook his head. "I already have them all. From last year. As long as you have the required badges when you enter, it doesn't matter how many times you use them. Last year, the requirement was four because there were only that many gyms. Then the Ebony Gym opened, and I needed that badge. So that's why I'm not still in Spectrum." 

Lilja nodded slowly and shivered. The weather this far north in November was too cold for her liking. Cinnabar was always warmish all year round, and it never had snow. The only time she had seen snow was in and around Cerulean City when passing through on her journey during a very freezing December. She told Kohji this.

"Yeah, it does get cold around here compared to where you're from. Anyways, maybe we should continue on to Tangerine Island. I don't know about you, but I want to get some training in before Christmas. And it'll probably take until around Christmas before we get there." Kohji picked up his backpack from the ground and walked over to his motorcycle. Lilja noticed something on the ground where his backpack was and went over to it. It looked like a wallet.

"Hey, Kohji? I think you dropped your w-" As she picked it up, a plastic card fell out. She recognized it, the card was a trainers license which was pretty much the same as hers. It had his picture in the left hand corner, and beside it was the information where he got it from, the date, and stuff like that. Under the picture was his trainer number, name and birthdate. For a second, Lilja was confused. This license was obviously Kohji's, but the name wasn't. It was spelled "Koji Meitoku" instead of "Kohji Hakumi" as he had told her.

"You call my name? Oh, hey you found my wallet, I was just looking for that!" He chuckled. Lilja passed him the wallet and waved his trainers license in his face. 

"Why is the name you told me, not on this?" She demanded.

He took the card from her. "Aw, this? Well my aunt is such a controlling person, she wouldn't allow me to get my pokemon license. I begged her, but she wouldn't let me. She said I had no need to train, and that I was to stay home. I told her she wouldn't ever know if I got one or not, and she told me it was easy enough to call PKMNHQ and ask if I had registered. I registered anyway. Fake name on the card, she'll never know!" Kohji laughed for a second. "Oh, and as for the first name, I was creative enough to just take the 'h' out of mine." He winked at her. "Well, lets get moving, before hell freezes over!"

Lilja accepted his excuse as valid, climbed on the motorcycle behind him, and they were soon on their way to Tangerine Island.

* * *


	11. Secrets Exposed - Part 11 : Kohji's Abil...

Secrets Exposed  
Part 11: Kohji's Abilities  
By Freakachu

_::Authors note:: Okay, this part contains a bit of swearing and violence. ::End authors note:: _

After arriving on the shore of Tangerine Island a week before Christmas, via ferry, Lilja and Kohji had a few hours drive ahead of them to the gym. Tangerine wasn't a tropical type island like Cinnabar, as Lilja had expected. It was more northern, and it had snow. For a while, they sped through the snow covered paths in silence. 

About a half hour later, Kohji made a sharp turn into the forest. Lilja was surprised, and asked him where it was he was heading.

"Shortcut to the town this way."

"Are you sure?" She queried, shivering on the back of the motorcycle.

Kohji nodded. "Positive."

The snowy woods was eerie, and shadowy. Kohji stopped the bike, and they sat there in the middle of a forest path. He looked about, then cleared his throat. "Something isn't right here."

"What do you mean by th-" Lilja started, but was cut off by a yell, and something or someone dropped out of a tree in front of them. 

The fallen object turned out to be a person, and was soon followed by five others, blocking Kohji and Lilja from driving off in any direction. They wore familiar, identical uniforms, black with a red "R" on the front of each."Okay Freakachu girl. We've been given special orders to take you with us." 

The rockets started to close in on the kids, and Kohji looked baffled. "What the hell do they want you for?"

Lilja was scared stiff. "They want my Freakachu." She muttered, barely able to speak.

Kohji got off the bike and stood protectively in front of Lilja. "They'll have to get past me first."

* * *

"Damn, damn, damn!" Sergio muttered, and hopped around in a circle.

"What's yer problem?" Asked Zeke, who was at the moment trying on a navy blue uniform that Vera, Jessie and Cassidy had designed.

Sergio sighed and put his head in his hands. "I can't think of a name for the bloody team."

"Who says we need a name?" James put in, "Oh hey, how about Team Comet?"

Vera made a disgusted face. "Oh yeah right. Sounds like a cleanser! Next, you'll be wanting the gang to be called Team Draino, or Toilet Duck or something."

Snickering, Butch added, "Mr. Clean!"

"Th' Lysol Gang!" yelled Cletus. He then looked toward Zeke who appeared to be in thought.

"2000 Flushes Chlorine clear tablets!" Zeke finally burst out laughing.

Everything went completely quiet. Then a few seconds later, everyone but Sergio was rolling around laughing again.

* * *

Nyarthashi sat on the floor of the small room. It wasn't the same room as she had been in before. The room and building she was now in was built strongly enough that a hand grenade wouldn't do much damage. She was in this type of room because of the person who was with her. Draigh.

Draigh had been the boy on the roof that called to her that day about a week and a half ago. Giovanni had been true to his word, Draigh had found her and captured her. When Giovanni had them where he wanted them, they were both taken away. Draigh hadn't protested much like he used to. It would have been "Let me go, you *beep*ing *beep*er! Or I'll blast your *beep*ing head off!" The only thing Draigh had said to Giovanni, was "Why?"

"You were to capture her and that was all. Now that I have her and she cannot ruin things, I don't need either of you, seeing as how neither of you don't seem to be willing to work for Team Rocket." He had said, coldly.

So there they were, in a dark room, with no windows, and a very small oil lamp and only so much oil. On the first day there, Nyarthashi had been so angry that she had almost smashed it, but Draigh had calmed her down enough to tell her that if she broke their only source of light, they'd be sorry later. The room was supposed to be soundproof as well, but Nyarthashi could faintly hear people on the outside when Draigh could not. 

"Have you figured out why he's like that?" A voice faintly heard, said. To Nyarthy, it sounded like Giovanni's gruff voice.

"Well, we're working on it, but I think the personality change is due to the type of pokemon he was spliced with. I understand he was an abominable youth and lately he has become...nice. Dragonite are usually seen as intelligent and kind creatures. They are sensitive and loving. It is possible that the pokemon personality has somehow also been integrated in with the boy's." This was someone Nyarthashi had never heard or seen before.

She glared at Draigh from across the room. "They're still yakking out there. You know, it's all your fault that we're in here."

Draigh nodded. "I'm stupid, okay?"

Nyarthashi crossed the room and sat down beside him. "Your fault." She elbowed him in the side. "Your damn fault." She elbowed him again.

"Stop it."

"Your fault" *elbow*

"Stop."

"Your fault we're in here" *elbow*

Draigh elbowed her back. "Will you knock it off already? Look. I know it's my fault. You don't have to remind me every second of every day."

Nyarthashi was suddenly upset. "I...I just met my mother and sister for the first time the day you came and attacked me..." Her voice started to break and a tear ran down her cheek. 

"Don't cry... please?" He was becoming sad by her sniffling.

"I bet you didn't know that he's my father did you?" She yelled at him. "Did you?!" Sobs filled the room.

Draigh's eyes widened. "Giovanni?" He looked at the crying cat-girl wailing into her hands, with his own sadness filling up inside and bit his lip. "Are you serious?"

Nodding, Nyarthashi sniffled again. 

Not knowing if he should, Draigh debated comforting her. _'She's not exactly amused with me... but yet... I think I like this girl.'_ He put his hand on her shoulder. "Um, don't cry. It's alright, we'll get out of this. I know it." 

Nyarthy looked up at him. The lamplight flickered and reflected in his eyes. Slowly, Draigh leaned forward and kissed her softly. He braced himself for the smash he was sure to get, but never came. Instead, Nyarthashi pulled away and stood up angrily, stalking over to the opposite side of the room to sit on the straw she slept on. "What in the hell were you doing? You stay over there and leave me alone!"

Draigh started to argue, but decided against it and started pouting. Nyarthashi was only mad for a few minutes more when she decided that she hadn't minded it at all. She also decided that she sort of liked Draigh. But she wasn't going to let him know that. She curled up in a ball in her straw, and went to sleep.

* * *

The six Rockets closed in on Lilja and Kohji.

"If we want to take her, we will." Sneered one.

"You ain't going to stop us, little boy." Smirked another.

Kohji twitched. "Little?"

Three of the Rockets went for Lilja, and while Kohji was about to protect her, the remaining three caught him, and tied him up against a tree so he couldn't move.

"Kohji! Help!" Lilja yelled, as the guys who had her, cackled.

The shortest Rocket, who was a few inches taller than Kohji, muttered to the other two who were grasping Lilja. "You know, now that we've got her, we can do whatever we want with her before we take her and the Freakachu to Giovanni. Lets have some fun." The other two nodded in agreement, and the three that were roughly provoking Kohji, snickered. They began pushing Lilja around, and one swiped her backpack, tossing it to another. A game of monkey-in-the-middle went on for a few minutes, then the shortest rocket, who was a few inches taller than Kohji, grabbed Lilja. 

He unzipped her jacket, and placed his ungloved hands over her chest, grinning nastily. One hand slid up her shirt, and she screamed, and tried to kick him. The two bigger rockets held her tightly in place. "You are a feisty one..." he hissed, as he removed his hand from her chest, and slapped her across the face, knocking her to the ground. He then pinned her into the snow.

"You get the hell away from her!" Kohji bellowed, and the rope around him suddenly dissolved.

One of the bigger Rockets swung a fist at Kohji. Lilja kept screaming as loud as she could through the guys hand, which he had clamped over her mouth. Lilja could hear scuffling, and when she opened one eye, a Rocket that had attempted to punch at Kohji was face first on the ground. One of the others also went after him, but Kohji had belted him in the mouth.

"FUCKING PEDOPHILE BASTARDS!" Kohji yelled, as he started to glow, and a pair of feathery white wings burst from his back. An energy ball formed in his hands. Aiming it at the Rocket with Lilja, he shot it straight towards the guy, and the ball of blue energy became a mighty beam which blasted right through the unsuspecting Rocket. The other five rockets were horrified at the fate of their teammate, and all took off running.

Kohji rushed over to Lilja, and pulled her out from underneath the blood-soaked rocket. He was still alive, but barely. Kohji held Lilja against him as he stood, shaking. Lilja was crying silently "Are you alright?" He shook her a bit, and she barely nodded. She was quite banged up, with a large red mark on the side of her face, and her shirt was a bit ripped. Kohji helped her over to the bike, and they sped all the way to the town.

* * *

Taking a break from training until the summer Rainbow League, Ash and Misty were staying in a small cabin on the edge of the town and forest. It had been for rent, and Ash knew they'd be needing it. It was months and months before the Pokemon league, and they needed a place to stay. A fire was blazing in the fireplace, and Ash sat in front of it, holding Pikachu in his arms. His other pokemon were wandering around the room, doing other things. Misty sat down on the floor beside Ash.

"What do you want most for Christmas?" She asked him, hoping it was something she could possibly get him.

He looked down at Pikachu who was sleeping in his lap, still weak from its condition. "I want Pikachu to get better. I want it to be healthy again."

Misty was disappointed. She wanted to be able to at least buy him the thing he wanted most. Then she thought of something. If Pikachu getting better was what he wanted most, did that mean he had forgotten about Lilja? Did she, Misty, have a chance with Ash after all? She moved closer to him, and leaned her head on his shoulder. Instantly, she felt his body stiffen, and he stood up. 

"Um, I'm going to...go to bed now." He muttered, and left Misty alone beside the fire. He sat on the edge of the bed he'd been sleeping in while they stayed at the cabin. All kinds of thoughts entered his mind, thoughts about how Misty felt about him. It made him uncomfortable. He thought about Lilja. He wondered where she was, what she was doing and if she was thinking about him. He doubted it. 

* * *

"Nyarthashi, I'm sorry." Draigh muttered to the darkness as he put out the lamp, and slid over to his corner of the room. "You aren't talking to me...I know. I shouldn't have been so...so...er, anyways, you seemed to not mind, so..."

Draigh heard a stirring in Nyarthy's corner. "Maybe I didn't min-OW, damn wall!" Nyarthashi yelped as she hit her head into the wall by accident.

To make sure she was alright, and forgetting that she was strong, and not a baby, he rushed over to her. Since it was dark, he couldn't see, and he almost fell over her. "Draigh, I'm fine." she complained, as he touched her head. Draigh began to stroke her hair, and buried his face in it, inhaling the scent of it. 

Not realizing it, he had wrapped his arms and wings around Nyarthashi, and pulled her towards him. She let out a small sound like an "eep", as he started to kiss her hair and face.

Nyarthashi didn't say anything. She just leaned up against Draigh's chest in the dark, and let him continue to pet her hair.

* * *

A faint musical sound woke Lilja from her sleep of almost death, and when things came into focus she saw that she was in a bed. All at once, she remembered what had happened, and began gasping for air. The musical sound that had awakened her, continued to play. It sounded as if it was coming from another room. Lilja pushed aside the warm blankets and stood up on the floor. The room she was in, was quite large, about three times bigger than her room at home, with a hardwood floor and pale purple walls and ceiling. The canopy on the bed was also light purple, and the bed had a dark violet quilt on it, with mauve pillows and sheets. 

She didn't know where she was, and she didn't know where Kohji had gone, but the music she heard compelled her to open the door of the room and search for the source of it. She wandered into a hall, which was quite wide, and realized she was on an upper floor of wherever she was. A balcony was wide open, and looked down on the entrance to the house. Lilja didn't hesitate with going down the wide flight of stairs, and continued to follow the music around a corner. At the end of the hall, she found a large set of double doors which were slightly open. Peering through the crack of the doors, Lilja could see a beautiful big room with antique but comfortable looking furniture, and a large ebony grand piano. 

"So this is where that wonderful music is coming from." She mused, and when she saw who was playing, she almost fell over from shock. Obviously a boy of many talents, Kohji was playing the piano. She leaned up against the door, as the melody filled her ears and touched her like nothing ever had. Lilja practically fell in the room, as the door swung open with her weight.

Kohji stopped playing, and spun around when he heard the door creak. "Lilja! You scared me."

"I'm sorry, I...heard that music when I woke up, and I had to look for it." She apologized.

"Don't be sorry, I should be. I didn't mean to disturb you." 

Twisting the sleeve of her shirt, Lilja replied, "Thanks for scaring those Team Rocket guys off, you even really hurt one. How did you do that?"

"Do? Oh, you mean that energy attack, right? Well, ever since I was small I could do things like that. I didn't mean to actually kill that Rocket guy, but I was so angry and so very scared that I couldn't control it very well." 

"I understand that, but...you had wings!"

Kohji put his arm behind his head and laughed. "Yeah, I did, didn't I?"

"Can you fly on them? Can you show them whenever you want?" Lilja, quite amazed, kept shooting questions at him.

"You sure have a lot of questions. I can't fly, they aren't all that large. I can glide short distances though, if I need to. And, yeah, I can pretty much use them whenever I want, although it took a long time for me to be able to figure out how to do it." He pulled off his shirt and a second later, wings seemed to burst from his back. Lilja took a closer look, as she hadn't been able to the last time. Kohji blushed and looked at the ground. He was right, his wings didn't' seem big enough to fly on. The pin feathers barely reached below his waist when they were folded up, and the span of them when he stretched them out were only a bit longer than his arms, outstretched.

"In my life I've only seen one other person with wings, and they were blue and Articuno-like, not white and feathery like yours! How did you get them?" Still in awe, she reached out to touch one and found it quite soft.

The blush remained on Kohji's face. "I've always had them. My cousin has them, my aunt does too, and my mother did as well."

Remembering something, Lilja asked "Aside from the wings, and the energy attacks, can you teleport?"

"Oh, sure. At least, I'm working on it. I'm not very good at it though." He replied, with a half-embarrassed smile. His wings vanished, leaving behind sparkles that drifted down like dust, and he quickly snatched up his shirt and slipped it back on.

Then it was Kohji's turn to be surprised, because one second Lilja was in front of him, and the next, she wasn't.


End file.
